Summerset architecture.

Kajuratus

This is closer to my Summerset



I mean, apart from it being shrunk in the middle and missing the cities of Dusk and Sunhold, this is what I imagine the glass city of Alinor to be. This is what I'd imagine the Crystal Tower looking like. Even Shimmerene seems to have some weird lights shining across the bay, giving credence to it being the "city of lights." One year clearly wasn't enough time to do justice to the largest isle of Summerset.

phantasmalD

Well, this thread sure got necro'd.

psychotrip wrote: »

VerboseQuips wrote: »

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

They clearly put a ton of effort into it. It's undeniably pretty, and a work of love.

It still doesn't strike me as particularly elven. It would have been great as Breton architecture, though. Imagine Wayrest looking like Alinor!

My thoughts exactly. A very beautiful work that would have suited the Bretons so well. It made me think of some châteaux I have seen in the Loire. I don't mind the stones, but I would have liked at least some insect chitin in some furnishings and some buildings (not even necessarily all of them).

It’s all just so painfully normal and...human. Not what I would’ve expected from the most ancient and “pure” elven civilization at all.

I mean I'm not saying that there is no room for improvement but is it really that 'human'? I mean what is human for you?

Is it really that different from the canonical elven architecture we had for over a decade now, aka Ayleid architecture? (And Falmer)
I don't think so, in fact, the Summerset Wayshrines are actually almost a one-to-one copy of the Snow elf wayshrines from TESV: Dawnguard. It's just a tad sleeker, taller version.

If the Summerset architecture seems mundane that's pretty much on Oblivion and Skyrim, not ESO.

Also, isn't it canon that human architecture repurposes and mimics elven architecture? Like pretty much the entirety of the Imperial City, or at least White-Gold and the Wheel was built by elves.
And I think all the cyrodilic Divines Chapels might also be elven. When you look at TESIV cities the chapels stick out like a sore thumb, the cities have vastly different architectural style than the Chapels. But that's just a theory, I don't think there's canon source for that.

Also, if the Monomyth is to be believed than humans aren't even that distinctively different from elves, both are descendants of Ehlnofey, the progenitors of humans just went further down the path of mortality.

vilio11

psychotrip wrote: »

GLP323b14_ESO wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

Rather than making a new thread, I figured I'd ask it here:

Now that Summerset has been out for a while, what do you guys think about the place? Do you like the art style? The architecture? The environment? Do you find it unique or distinguishable from other fantasy worlds?

It's a tremendous let-down in my opinion. I was expecting something much more grand and elegant, maybe even a bit otherworldly. But certainly with flowing sweeping architecture, with glass and crystal. And pristine, no dirt paths, particularly in towns and cities.

And the Crystal Tower. What the Oblivion! How! How did that make it as the winning design for it? Assuming they came up with multiple ideas for the tower (I'd love to see what other concepts they came up with, I suspect every last one of them is BETTER than this monstrosity.) Not that the Elder Scrolls art team has ever been particularly good with making attractive towers. But still.

I hope in any future game incarnations of this (perhaps when they have the graphics technology to do a Crystal Tower justice), they will explain ESO's version away as terribly faulty tales from a dark and chaotic time.

Unfortunately this is canon, so this is Summerset forever now. A generic forest with generic gothic era people scattered with greek ruins. Yay.

As if we didn't have enough forests and european architecture in Tamriel already. It's so uninspired.

Summerset does not feel alien.

Raisin

Happy approximate 1 year anniversary to the last post in the thread before necro!

TelvanniWizard

Summerset was soooo lame that is the only chapter I haven't bought.

FabresFour

My favorite city among all the games in the series. Alinor is simply stunning.


This is the view of the city of Port. Honestly, it seems to shine in the sunlight and the pattern of the towers is very "insectoid" for me. And the writer of the book speaks only of his view of the port.



And I quite like how Summerset's architecture is faithful to what was originally shown in the series.



Well, the Crystal Tower was NEVER made of crystal. Even in one of the only images that was not generated randomly in TES; Arena.

FabresFour

Come on, guys. The religion of the Eight was extremely inspired by the Altmer culture. The chapels of the Eight do not look like ANYTHING that exists in Cyrodiil. It was ALWAYS obvious to me that the chapels of the Eight were inspired by Altmer/Aldmer/Ayleid buildings. And this is what they did: Altmer buildings are a really large versions of the temples of the Eight.

Aendruu

FabresFour wrote: »

Come on, guys. The religion of the Eight was extremely inspired by the Altmer culture. The chapels of the Eight do not look like ANYTHING that exists in Cyrodiil. It was ALWAYS obvious to me that the chapels of the Eight were inspired by Altmer/Aldmer/Ayleid buildings. And this is what they did: Altmer buildings are a really large versions of the temples of the Eight.

Touché. However it was not merely Tamrielic religion that was based on ancient Aldmeri culture, but essentially everything:

Altmer consider themselves to be the most civilized culture of Tamriel; the common tongue of the continent is based on Altmer speech and writing, and most of the Empire's arts, crafts, laws, and sciences are derived from Altmer traditions.
- UESP: Lore: Altmer

Faulgor

It has kind of grown on me over the years as an addition to the game, especially the bright shorelines.
But I will never accept this as Summerset. It's all too mundane, too gothic, too human. The architecture seems more fitting for parts of High Rock, or at least only parts of Summerset, e.g. Auridon. That there is no distinction between Lillandril, Shimmerene, Alinor, Sunhold and Cloudrest is also really upsetting.

SpaceElf

It's my favorite zone, and I wish I could buy an Alinor-style mansion.

TheNuminous1

I do so love that my thread gets regularly brought back to light.

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

vilio11

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

Olauron

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

The size of main Summerset isle from north to south is the same as the size of Auridon from north to south. Auridon doesn't have different terrain. Why main isle should? Thanks aedra that mosquitoes live only in the NW-ern part.

TheNuminous1

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

Actually it has the highlands and gryphon peaks around the direnni lands.

It has the swampish boggy area around the wastes of corgrad.

The plains and fields surrounding russafeld.

All of the coastline is a seperate environment to the inland.

Ebon stadmont is a thicket of forest
And just past the Alaxon'Ald is a forest leading to sun hold.

There is lots of variety, it's just subtle and seamless. Easily missed to the untrained eye.

MornaBaine

OrdoHermetica wrote: »

They clearly put a ton of effort into it. It's undeniably pretty, and a work of love.

It still doesn't strike me as particularly elven. It would have been great as Breton architecture, though. Imagine Wayrest looking like Alinor!

This right here. I furnished my Daggerfall Overlook in all Summerset furniture and it looks like it belongs there. The actual Breton furnishings look like they belong in a peasant's hut.

vilio11

Olauron wrote: »

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

The size of main Summerset isle from north to south is the same as the size of Auridon from north to south. Auridon doesn't have different terrain. Why main isle should? Thanks aedra that mosquitoes live only in the NW-ern part.

Auridon is smaller

Nerouyn

psychotrip wrote: »

It’s all just so painfully normal and...human. Not what I would’ve expected from the most ancient and “pure” elven civilization at all.

Yeah. It's a huge disappointment. Especially after what they did to Telvanni towers in the previous DLC.

Auridon style actually looks elven. Alinor is a bizarre mix of greek (the old stuff) and gothic german.

Even if we removed the weird arse lore breaking greek stuff, what's left is still more Sound of Music than elven.

Yes, the older style is lore breaking. The Altmer are the Aldmer minus all the riff raff who left. Some of the supposedly newer Alinor style does mesh up with Ayleid architecture.

If not for that old greek crap, we'd all naturally assume that Ayleid architecture drew inspiration from Summerset. But with the weird old greek crap that doesn't work. It has to be the Altmer who copied the Ayleids. The same Altmer who proclaim to be the source of all things civilized.

They just wouldn't copy the riff raff who left. In stone. For all to see.

It's a lost cause though. I can't imagine ZO ever changing it.

Personally I put this on the things-which-make-ESO-not-Elder-Scrolls pile. Which is more like a mountain really.

Olauron

vilio11 wrote: »

Olauron wrote: »

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

The size of main Summerset isle from north to south is the same as the size of Auridon from north to south. Auridon doesn't have different terrain. Why main isle should? Thanks aedra that mosquitoes live only in the NW-ern part.

Auridon is smaller

Auridon from north to south is 85% of main Summerset isle from north to south. That doesn't justify radical terrain change. We already have swamps, beaches and grassland, as well as a few mountains. It is more than enough.

Nerouyn wrote: »

If not for that old greek crap, we'd all naturally assume that Ayleid architecture drew inspiration from Summerset. But with the weird old greek crap that doesn't work. It has to be the Altmer who copied the Ayleids. The same Altmer who proclaim to be the source of all things civilized.

Altmer are Aldmer. Ayleid are Aldmer. Aldmer ruins on Auridon are very close to Ayleid ruins in Grahtwood. Ayleids lost their cities and thus their architecture remained unchanged. Altmer developed their architecture for thousands of years more.
The 'greek' stuff is just the Tower Zero - Tower One style. Look at the Direnni Tower and at the White-Gold. Look at the interiors of the White-Gold. That is the same Aldmer style with slight variations.

vilio11

Olauron wrote: »

Altmer are Aldmer. Ayleid are Aldmer. Aldmer ruins on Auridon are very close to Ayleid ruins in Grahtwood. Ayleids lost their cities and thus their architecture remained unchanged. Altmer developed their architecture for thousands of years more.
The 'greek' stuff is just the Tower Zero - Tower One style. Look at the Direnni Tower and at the White-Gold. Look at the interiors of the White-Gold. That is the same Aldmer style with slight variations.

Having Altmer ruins and old buildings in Alinor is lore breaking. Altmer are perfectionist and their island is encapsulated in time

Olauron

vilio11 wrote: »

Olauron wrote: »

Altmer are Aldmer. Ayleid are Aldmer. Aldmer ruins on Auridon are very close to Ayleid ruins in Grahtwood. Ayleids lost their cities and thus their architecture remained unchanged. Altmer developed their architecture for thousands of years more.
The 'greek' stuff is just the Tower Zero - Tower One style. Look at the Direnni Tower and at the White-Gold. Look at the interiors of the White-Gold. That is the same Aldmer style with slight variations.

Having Altmer ruins and old buildings in Alinor is lore breaking. Altmer are perfectionist and their island is encapsulated in time

Yes, ruins are mostly lore breaking. Altmer should have fixed all the broken columns, arches and everything else. That doesn't mean that columns, arches, etc. are lore breaking. Ruins are appropriate only for something like daedra cult places that are abandoned and well hidden.
As for old buildings, nothing wrong with them, if they are repaired.

Carylas

It's not lore breaking. Loremaster Lawrence Schick gave an explanation during the Summerfall Event Stream as to why we see ruins on Summerset Isles. Starts at 18:40.

https://youtu.be/BtB-S4Jl-9U?t=1120

Rave the Histborn

Carylas wrote: »

It's not lore breaking. Loremaster Lawrence Schick gave an explanation during the Summerfall Event Stream as to why we see ruins on Summerset Isles. Starts at 18:40.

https://youtu.be/BtB-S4Jl-9U?t=1120

Did you actually listen to what you linked? The lore master doesn't know anything about the lore XD

"We are in the 2nd era and we are in between the great empires of the 1st era and the 3rd era. Our period is called the Interregnum, it's kind of the low eb of civilization in Tamriel, so a lot of places that used to be populace are now relatively abandoned"

Now, keep in mind the Interregnum has nothing to do with Summerset Isle and it was meant to denote the time period between empires, not that suddenly the population was *** and there was 3-4x less people in the world. How would the Interregnum actually effect Summerset if the island is completely withdrawn from all of Tamrielic civilization (hint: it can't)

Jump to 19:20 when he says that one of the locations wasn't called the Cathederal of Webs 1500 years ago (no way, really?) and instead it was named "something to do with a library or archive" and right after that you can hear the scoffed laughter of someone on the panel after hearing something so idiotic.

Olauron

Carylas wrote: »

It's not lore breaking. Loremaster Lawrence Schick gave an explanation during the Summerfall Event Stream as to why we see ruins on Summerset Isles. Starts at 18:40.

The thing is this explanation is as good as an explanation of 'The Lusty Argonian Maid' in ESO (that doesn't explain 'The Last King of the Ayleids' in ESO, a book written by an Imperial named Herminia Cinna at the end of the 3rd era).
This explanation may work for Sunhold and Cloudrest, the cities that are currently under attack and can't be repaired. This explanation may work for Wasten Coraldale, that is under attack. It doesn't work with something like Castle Rilis on Auridon (even if it is done in Aldmer style). It definitely doesn't work with Alinor. In no way Altmer who are known to be extremely perfect in every sense will leave broken columns, for example, at the entrance to crafting area of Alinor.
'The carefully manicured 'wilderness' of inner Auridon. I get the impression even the weeds were hand-placed', from the ESO guide to the empire.
Simply put, developers are just obsessed with ruins. They can't create anything without ruins. Even on Artaeum there are ruins of Traitor's Vault and Grand Psijic Villa.

tuxon

Half of Alinor is in ruins though there was no war and the same civilisation is living there. ZOS doesn't understand what are ruins and how they formed.

Hymzir

Olauron wrote: »

Simply put, developers are just obsessed with ruins. They can't create anything without ruins. Even on Artaeum there are ruins of Traitor's Vault and Grand Psijic Villa.

TES games are set in a medieval fantasy world. And as everyone knows, medieval buildings are all in ruins. So you need to have ruins for that authentic medieval look, since obviously everyone lived in ruins during the medieval period. All you need to do to understand this fact, is to look at surviving medieval buildings - they are all in ruins or at the very least really old and worn and busted, right!

But in all seriousness, the devs at ZOS do have a strange fixation on ruins and beaten up and busted aesthetics. And I do think it has something to do with what I wrote above. It's not unique to the people working at ZOS either, since I see this thing pop up all the time in all sort of medieval themed designs, be it games, or books, or comics or what have you. More in Amercian creations, but Europeans do fall victim to this sort of thinking too, even though they really should know better, especially since so many of us still live in what are essentially medieval towns and cities. And no, they are not all in ruins, and people do maintain them and repair them if they get broken.

At the same time though, the thing about ruins is that they are all over Europe. And they were all over Europe in medieval times too. Civilization in the old world is old, and there are ruined monuments to bygone eras pretty much everywhere. Except in the furthest northern reaches. There were people living there even back then, but they were not apt to build huge stone cities. Though... then again we have things like Skara Brae, so in a fantasy world even ancient northern stone ruins are fair game.

The thing to understand is, that to the people who lived around the 13th century, Roman and Greek civilizations were twice as far back in time as medieval people are to us living in modern times. They were just as ancient in the eyes of medieval people as they are in ours. And to the eyes of those Roman and Greek civilizations, the people from Mesopotamia and Egypt were thousands of years in the past. The people of the ancient world looked at their ruined monuments in the same way we look at Greek and Roman ruins these days.

So yeah... Abundance of ruins is kind of a mandatory part of a traditional medieval fantasy world. Ancient structures and palaces of forgotten eras should dot the land pretty much everywhere. Not cover up everything for sure, but they should be evenly dotted over every corner of the world. And in many case, people did continue living in those old structures millennia after their initial construction, or just kept building new stuff over the old. So some amount of ruined architecture is fine.

But even so... There still is no excuse for ZOS ruinificating everything, and churning out dilated busted and broken buildings for everything everywhere regardless of whether it is ancient or not. And those ruins in Summerset are doubly irritating since they go against the Altmer creed of perfection and permanence and the unchanging nature of things over time. Plus they totally contradict earlier established aesthetics for Aldmer ruins. Remember, those Ayleid looking structures on Auridon, are not Ayleid ruins, they are Aldmer ruins and thus should be of similar style as the ruins on Summerset. (You can differentiate them by whether they are lit by Culanda or Welkynd Stones.)

But what ever, ZOS is not one to worry about internal consistency. Though I do wish they'd stop making every building look like repairing stuff is an alien concept in Tamriel, and that no one has constructed any new buildings in the past 500 years. (Except for Vivec City - hooray for something that is not a ruin, though due to all the construction, it still looks like one.)

Olauron

Hymzir wrote: »

The thing to understand is, that to the people who lived around the 13th century, Roman and Greek civilizations were twice as far back in time as medieval people are to us living in modern times. They were just as ancient in the eyes of medieval people as they are in ours. And to the eyes of those Roman and Greek civilizations, the people from Mesopotamia and Egypt were thousands of years in the past. The people of the ancient world looked at their ruined monuments in the same way we look at Greek and Roman ruins these days.

So yeah... Abundance of ruins is kind of a mandatory part of a traditional medieval fantasy world. Ancient structures and palaces of forgotten eras should dot the land pretty much everywhere. Not cover up everything for sure, but they should be evenly dotted over every corner of the world. And in many case, people did continue living in those old structures millennia after their initial construction, or just kept building new stuff over the old. So some amount of ruined architecture is fine.

I actually agree with this, for High Rock. Ruins in now-human provinces may or should be viewed this way. The problem with elves is they live much much more. Times that are ancient for humans are times when this elf was young... or at least his grandparents were young. We have a huge number of examples in ES, like Galerion, like Barenziah, like Fyr, like YR (who wrote in the commentaries for the Pocket Guide to the Empire in or after 2E 864 'Eric of Guis -- Does Grandfather remember this fool?' about a person of the 1st era), like Gelebor, like Elenwen.

Hymzir wrote: »

Plus they totally contradict earlier established aesthetics for Aldmer ruins. Remember, those Ayleid looking structures on Auridon, are not Ayleid ruins, they are Aldmer ruins and thus should be of similar style as the ruins on Summerset. (You can differentiate them by whether they are lit by Culanda or Welkynar Stones.)

The way I see it - it is a stretch, it could and maybe should be done better - it may be explained that Auridon is the first settled island. Firsthold is First Hold, it is from Arena, it is the first city of Aldmer (not counting those on Aldmeris). So the Aldmer came to Auridon and built cities in that particular style. Their colonial forces (led by Topal the Pilot), later named Ayleids, used the same style for their cities. The bigger Summerset isle used more monumental style for the cities, the style that has more in common with the Tower-Zero (built by the Divines) and the Tower-One (built by Ayleids). A few eras later that aldmer-auridon style transformed into modern Auridon style, aldmer-monumental style transformed into modern Alinor style.

Hymzir

Olauron wrote: »

I actually agree with this, for High Rock. Ruins in now-human provinces may or should be viewed this way. The problem with elves is they live much much more. Times that are ancient for humans are times when this elf was young... or at least his grandparents were young. We have a huge number of examples in ES, like Galerion, like Barenziah, like Fyr, like YR (who wrote in the commentaries for the Pocket Guide to the Empire in or after 2E 864 'Eric of Guis -- Does Grandfather remember this fool?' about a person of the 1st era), like Gelebor, like Elenwen.

Well yeah, but also... Look, all am saying is that there should not be any frigging ruined or dilapidated buildings in any Altmer cities or towns. No way those prissy high-elves would put up with that sortta nonsense. I also think that they would not suffer any ruined structures marring their "perfect" landscapes. I think they would just rebuild them, and prolly remodel to fit their current aesthetics - you know, the refined and perfected style they are currently blessed with, not the crude carvings of their ancestors. Or they would just bulldoze them ruins over and plant a flower garden or something over the resulting mounds. I mean, preserving history is one thing, mainly fit for books, but if the people who build the ruins perished, then they obviously were not worthy, and thus their labours are of little relevance to the glory that is Summerset. Or at least that is how I see the somewhat flanderized snooty-elves of TES behaving.

Even so, there's plenty of history in Tamriel, and while some individual Elves live truly long times, the majority of them do not, and past generations of elves - like the Aldmer, did leave behind ruins of their ancient and now abandoned settlements. Furthermore, Summerset is not exactly a small place, and it sure aint suffering from over population, so thus even there, tucked away in the less traveled parts of the isle, hidden among the glens in the mountains, bunch of ruins from millenia before should still exist.

So those ruins, and ruined dungeons, and forgotten stuff hidden in mountain valleys and such, do not bother me in the least. The style ZOS went with does, but then again I hate the whole notion of Disneyland Elven Architecture anyway, so that point is kinda moot for me.

But the thing that really pisses me of, is all the darn busted stuff littering the towns and cities, and ruins along the major thoroughfares of the island. Just like frigging no - those knife ears would fix those things or replace them with something they'd consider sensible. Related to that, I don't' see anything wrong with Artaeum being full of ancient structures though. The Psijics are not as prissy about such things, and prolly perfectly willing to let things follow their natural course and slowly crumble over time. Having said that, I still think they would fix and repair those portions of the ruins they still utilize.

It's those bits of broken crud that I object to. Like all the broken stuff in Hall of Moavita (plus the grimy display cases... I guess water bucket and cleaning rag is some sort of far fetched sci-fi tech no one has though up in Tamriel), the broken pillars in Shimmerene on the way to the Monastery, the ruins in and around Russafeld, the appalling state of the theater in Rellenthil, the crumbling structures of the garden at Cey Tarn, the broken pavements and crumbling edifices in Alinor, the worn down and crooked state of stairs in cities as well as all those cracked stone works. Most of the buildings themselves seem to be more or less intact, but every other tile set used for Summerset sports the trademark busted and broken bits that is ZOS aesthetics, making all the settlements look worn down and dilapidated.

Some amount of busted up stuff would be fine, since you know entropy happens, if there were also signs of maintenance and repair going on. That is, if some of those ruined bits were covered in scaffolding and npc:s were busy doing the hammer animation on them or something. But as it is, it just seems off.

Now I think I kinda understand why Summerset is as it is, and that is because the art direction was probably something along the lines of "lets make Summerset look and feel like romantic landscape paintings 'cause that'd be cool and purdy and will prolly push sales way up and stuff." And to the devs credit, Summerset is pretty and the designs are striking. They truly do encapsulate that feel of romatic landscapes, of which ruins happens to be a pretty big thematic motif. They are also totally wrong for TES high-elves and do not fit previously established aesthetics or anything that was said in the lore. [snip]

Hymzir wrote: »

Plus they totally contradict earlier established aesthetics for Aldmer ruins. Remember, those Ayleid looking structures on Auridon, are not Ayleid ruins, they are Aldmer ruins and thus should be of similar style as the ruins on Summerset. (You can differentiate them by whether they are lit by Culanda or Welkynar Stones.)

The way I see it - it is a stretch, it could and maybe should be done better - it may be explained that Auridon is the first settled island. Firsthold is First Hold, it is from Arena, it is the first city of Aldmer (not counting those on Aldmeris). So the Aldmer came to Auridon and built cities in that particular style. Their colonial forces (led by Topal the Pilot), later named Ayleids, used the same style for their cities. The bigger Summerset isle used more monumental style for the cities, the style that has more in common with the Tower-Zero (built by the Divines) and the Tower-One (built by Ayleids). A few eras later that aldmer-auridon style transformed into modern Auridon style, aldmer-monumental style transformed into modern Alinor style.

Now that's just nit-picking explanations, you know like how those Nitpickers Guides from yesteryear came up with bogus explanations for all the goofs that happened in series like Star Trek. If one stops and thinks about all these things, one will eventually come up with semi-plausible explanation that sort of makes things work, even if it feels rather farfetched, But hey, weirder things have happened in our own history, so why not in a fantasy world too?

[snip] They totally could've used earlier assets and designs, but that would probably not been as exciting as totally new stuff, and thus would've hurt their sales. [snip]

But enough, I've spend way too much time on this topic as is. All I really meant to say, is that I too think ZOS is over fixated on busted architecture and ruins, even though they are an integral part of the medieval fantasy trope. And most places in Summerset should not sport any ruins or busted up structures because high-elves, but even so, even Summerset should have ruins in remote corners of the isle. That's just how I see it, though there's bound to be people who disagree with me.

[edited for bashing]

psychotrip

Olauron wrote: »

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

The size of main Summerset isle from north to south is the same as the size of Auridon from north to south. Auridon doesn't have different terrain. Why main isle should? Thanks aedra that mosquitoes live only in the NW-ern part.

Because an entire expansion representing the majority of a country shouldn't have one generic repetitive biome throughout. Its that simple. Can you imagine when they make a full game out of Summerset? Whats the point? Canonically the entire region is one mountainy forest with some beaches. It would be like if Skyrim looked like a single hold. Imagine a province of just haafingar and every city had the exact same architecture as Solitude.

There's no excuse for it. Whether you compare it to any other successful mmo expansion, a singleplayer elder scrolls game, islands in real life, or even other island expansions from ESO, Summerset is just painfully same-y and homogenous.

Sure, you can make up reasons why, but at the end of the day this was a choice developers made. They were given the task of finally showcasing one of the most mysterious and least described regions of Tamriel (and dont count Arena, guys, they openly retconned half of that stuff when Redguard came out. Thats what the PGE was originally made for before they decided it was all a transcription error)...and the best they could come up with was ANOTHER generic european forest.

psychotrip

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

Actually it has the highlands and gryphon peaks around the direnni lands.

It has the swampish boggy area around the wastes of corgrad.

The plains and fields surrounding russafeld.

All of the coastline is a seperate environment to the inland.

Ebon stadmont is a thicket of forest
And just past the Alaxon'Ald is a forest leading to sun hold.

There is lots of variety, it's just subtle and seamless. Easily missed to the untrained eye.

If I need to train my eye to appreciate the diversity of Summerset, then that's not my problem. This isnt some elitist art piece. This is a nation in a supposedly deep and rich fantasy universe. Saying its sublte and easily missed is just a way of spinning the repetitive landscape in comparison to other games and even othet ESO expansions.

TheNuminous1

psychotrip wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

vilio11 wrote: »

TheNuminous1 wrote: »

I'm in love with my beautiful archipelago of summerset, auridon, and artaeum. I spend as much time as I can there.

It looks beautiful. The ploblem is that the zone looks the same and is to homogenic. The northern part of the zone have the same biom and terrain as the southern...

Actually it has the highlands and gryphon peaks around the direnni lands.

It has the swampish boggy area around the wastes of corgrad.

The plains and fields surrounding russafeld.

All of the coastline is a seperate environment to the inland.

Ebon stadmont is a thicket of forest
And just past the Alaxon'Ald is a forest leading to sun hold.

There is lots of variety, it's just subtle and seamless. Easily missed to the untrained eye.

If I need to train my eye to appreciate the diversity of Summerset, then that's not my problem. This isnt some elitist art piece. This is a nation in a supposedly deep and rich fantasy universe. Saying its sublte and easily missed is just a way of spinning the repetitive landscape in comparison to other games and even othet ESO expansions.

Actually everything you just said sounds exactly like high elf culture. It is an elitist art piece. That one would need a trained eye for.