Summerset architecture.

Okiir

JD2013 wrote: »

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

I agree. But I would say that "non-functional, romantic and whimsical" is exactly what we got. That's the problem.

The Altmer are supposed to be advanced, logical, conservative and stoic, which is exactly why the pretty and whimsical Cinderella castles make little sense.

And it's not like we haven't seen Altmer architecture before. We see it here (From Elder Scrolls Legends)
https://betweenthelanesnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/gqdw0ak.png

And here (Zenimax's own concept art from 2014)
https://i.imgur.com/8BdmEip.jpg


EDIT:
Just for fun I googled "pretty and whimsical castle". This was the first result:


Is it just me or did Zenimax copy this?

JD2013

Okiir wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

I agree. But I would say that "non-functional, romantic and whimsical" is exactly what we got. That's the problem.

The Altmer are supposed to be advanced, logical, conservative and stoic, which is exactly why the pretty and whimsical Cinderella castles make little sense.

And it's not like we haven't seen Altmer architecture before. We see it here (From Elder Scrolls Legends)
https://betweenthelanesnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/gqdw0ak.png

And here (Zenimax's own concept art from 2014)
https://i.imgur.com/8BdmEip.jpg

The above picture is of Hohenzollern Castle in Germany. A lot of the architecture of Summerset, to my eye, looks quite Germanic. They are also a functional people. Hardy. Stoic. That's how it looks to me, anyhow.

It seems ZOS took cues, architecturally, from another stoic and logical people.

TelvanniWizard

JD2013 wrote: »

Okiir wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

I agree. But I would say that "non-functional, romantic and whimsical" is exactly what we got. That's the problem.

The Altmer are supposed to be advanced, logical, conservative and stoic, which is exactly why the pretty and whimsical Cinderella castles make little sense.

And it's not like we haven't seen Altmer architecture before. We see it here (From Elder Scrolls Legends)
https://betweenthelanesnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/gqdw0ak.png

And here (Zenimax's own concept art from 2014)
https://i.imgur.com/8BdmEip.jpg

The above picture is of Hohenzollern Castle in Germany. A lot of the architecture of Summerset, to my eye, looks quite Germanic. They are also a functional people. Hardy. Stoic. That's how it looks to me, anyhow.

It seems ZOS took cues, architecturally, from another stoic and logical people.

Don´t forget national socialists (Nzi). Completely altmer.

More seriously, LORE. Why nobody cares about lore?

Edit: Why can´t we write the Nzi word in the forums? Seems a very childish restriction.

rpfc1009

I’m underwhelmed.
Yes, lore and accounts in the elder scrolls are subjective, but it’s a pity that subjectivity is being used as a justification for a boring interpretation...
Pity, could have been a new and exciting area different from all other mmos.
Morrowind, the game, was such a breath of fresh air and life into the genre. different, challenging and yes, sometimes very weird. But the story, chars, architecture and landscape made it unique.

Final Fantasy XIV

Warcraft the Movie

Personally, I expected more

psychotrip

JD2013 wrote: »

Nothing will ever match anyone's headcanon. Which is why headcanon is exactly that.

I think Summerset looks fine. The white stone very likely would glimmer in the sun.

It has impossibly tall looking ramparts and towers.

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

Since people keep repeating this (and completely missing the point in doing so), then I'll keep repeating this:

This isn’t a matter of our expectations being too high to ever be satisfied. This isn’t just a matter of different accounts and unreliable narrators.

The problem is that none of this is consistent with anything we’ve seen from the altmer in-game. Sorry, but you can’t “transcription error” your way out of this one.

Tell me guys: does this style even look consistent with anything we’ve actually seen from the altmer before? Not talking about “unreliable narrator” stuff this time, but things we’ve actually seen within the elder scrolls universe?






Elven stuff has always had this weird blend of deliberate angles and abstract, organic shapes. What happened to all that?


Let’s not forget what the “elven style” looked like in Morrowind (yes, the glass armor in Morrowind was made by the altmer, according to the in-game dialogue and the fact that altmer own most of the glass mines in the game)




Also, this begs the question: where are the altmer getting all this malachite? It’s supposed to be volcanic glass. And yet the Summerset in this game doesn’t seem to have any volcanoes, and it’s not like Skyrim where most of the malachite is near the Morrowind border. Judging by their resources, I always imagined Summerset as some sort of hot, hawaiian-esque volcanic island.

But I digress, does any of this look compatible with the supposed “real” Summerset? Does it look like the same culture even made this stuff? It’s more suited to bretons imo.




To those pulling the “exaggerations / unreliable narrator” card: No one is saying there aren't multiple interpretations of the lore, and we're not arguing that ESO did it "wrong".

We're arguing that they decided to go for the most boring, mundane, seen-before interpretation possible. Like they almost always do, unless they're forced to do otherwise (like with Morrowind).

I swear, Zenimax seems so afraid to take artistic risks. Is gray stone really the best the altmer can do? Medieval humans in real life had more advanced, colorful, and creative structures than this. Come on. If humans did this:



The Altmer should be capable of something, anything more. This is supposedly a civilization so advanced that it could only be conquered by a giant robot god, and yet none of that advancement is showcased here.

I can’t imagine showing ZOS something like the image above:

"Hark! What is this lunacy? What strange race of monster built this? There's nothing realistic about this at all! And why is there so much color? Where's all the gray? Madness, I say! It's like these people are making buildings out of poetry!"
- Zenimax, probably.

This decision to turn Summerset into yet another old-timey european landscape just reeks of creative bankruptcy.

At this point, they so clearly use the “unreliable narrator” trope as a selective crutch to retroactively justify their decisions. Then we’re stuck with the most boring interpretations possible. It’s just so see-through at this point. They hide behind transcription errors when they simply don’t want to embrace the more unique aspects of this IP.

If you dont believe that they either ran out of time, ideas, or both, then riddle me this: why, after Morrowind released with at least 3 unique art styles for the dunmer, are the altmer stuck with 1? That’s right, all the cities in Summerset use the exact same models. Unlike with Morrowind, they can’t ride the coat-tails of past games this time. This time, they had to do the artistic leg-work themselves, and this is what they come up with. Jesus.

Artaeum also looks quite interesting

I've addressed this numerous times in numerous threads: Artaeum is awesome. If anything, it disproves everyone's arguments that Zenimax simply "couldn't" do anything more creative with the Altmer of Summerset.

All this does is show how incongruous the style of the mainland is. Even the ancient aldmer ruins look mundane and generic compared to this. Artaeum is meant to be even stranger and more advanced than the rest of Summerset, but that doesn't mean Summerset should look like a generic medieval kingdom, like I've seen in dozens of other games.

TelvanniWizard

@psychotrip you copying other people posts. You could at least quote.

You realize that you have copied the saint chapelle thing from me and other stuff from other poster, not only in this thread, but also in this one here?:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4973387/#Comment_4973387

Casowen

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

Don´t forget national socialists (Nzi). Completely altmer.

More seriously, LORE. Why nobody cares about lore?

Edit: Why can´t we write the Nzi word in the forums? Seems a very childish restriction.

I would argue the Altmer are not oppressive and the nicest of all the people in the ESO universe. I dont know how they got this snobby reputation, and given how germanic the architecture is, one might say this is really a very "NORDIC" place Now all of a sudden given the ESO nords conflicts with say the dunmer, this is starting to look a little like the nzi word you described. Poor skyrim players, just gotta replace dovaknin with fluher now, and its starting to sound like a wagner opera(Im saying this all jokingly). I dont think you can really compare elves to humans, more like ficticious ET species like vulcans, arcturians, etc. Oh god, I hope devs arent reading this, I im not rying to offend anyone.

psychotrip

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

@psychotrip you copying other people posts. You could at least quote.

You realize that you have copied the saint chapelle thing from me and other stuff from other poster, not only in this thread, but also in this one here?:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4973387/#Comment_4973387

I was more trying to agree with and add to your point than to "copy" you, but I'll quote you in the future if you prefer. I don't personally care when people share my arguments or post the same pics as I do, and I'm used to people doing that on this and other forums, but sorry if it came off the wrong way. I guess I just liked what you said so much that I didn't really think about it. It was a very concise, well-developed point.

TelvanniWizard

psychotrip wrote: »

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

@psychotrip you copying other people posts. You could at least quote.

You realize that you have copied the saint chapelle thing from me and other stuff from other poster, not only in this thread, but also in this one here?:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4973387/#Comment_4973387

I was more trying to agree with and add to your point than to "copy" you, but I'll quote you in the future if you prefer. I'm used to people doing the same thing to me (especially with pics I post and arguments I make) and I don't mind personally, but sorry if it came off the wrong way.

Don´t worry, perhaps I was too harsh. But, I you can, quote.

psychotrip

So they moved the other thread to "lore" where no one will see it, even though they were asking for in-game changes and not trading fanfics. Typical.

Either way, just to reiterate the point:

1. Zenimax chose the most boring interpretation possible.
2. This interpretation is completely inconsistent from everything we've seen in-game so far. How the hell is this the same culture that makes elven and glass armor and weapons? It looks closer to a breton city.
3. They're only giving Summerset one single building style, while Morrowind got three. It seems they ran out of ideas pretty fast.
4. Even though they kept repeating how Altmer obsess over the past and preservation and keeping things the same, the isle is littered with crumbling ruins, even in the middle of their towns. Are ZOS's own words "transcription errors" now?

hmsdragonfly

JD2013 wrote: »

Okiir wrote: »

JD2013 wrote: »

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

I agree. But I would say that "non-functional, romantic and whimsical" is exactly what we got. That's the problem.

The Altmer are supposed to be advanced, logical, conservative and stoic, which is exactly why the pretty and whimsical Cinderella castles make little sense.

And it's not like we haven't seen Altmer architecture before. We see it here (From Elder Scrolls Legends)
https://betweenthelanesnet.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/gqdw0ak.png

And here (Zenimax's own concept art from 2014)
https://i.imgur.com/8BdmEip.jpg

The above picture is of Hohenzollern Castle in Germany. A lot of the architecture of Summerset, to my eye, looks quite Germanic. They are also a functional people. Hardy. Stoic. That's how it looks to me, anyhow.

It seems ZOS took cues, architecturally, from another stoic and logical people.

You just described Bretons.

TelvanniWizard

psychotrip wrote: »

So they moved the other thread to "lore" where no one will see it, even though they were asking for in-game changes and not trading fanfics. Typical.

Either way, just to reiterate the point:

1. Zenimax chose the most boring interpretation possible.
2. This interpretation is completely inconsistent from everything we've seen in-game so far. How the hell is this the same culture that makes elven and glass armor and weapons? It looks closer to a breton city.
3. They're only giving Summerset one single building style, while Morrowind got three. It seems they ran out of ideas pretty fast.
4. Even though they kept repeating how Altmer obsess over the past and preservation and keeping things the same, the isle is littered with crumbling ruins, even in the middle of their towns. Are ZOS's own words "transcription errors" now?

Well said!

XomRhoK

Recently i again watched two videos from twitch Summerset announcement, which are not available at www.elderscrollsonline.com. And they show much more altmer architecture than gameplay trailer video.
first video
second video
And in some shots windows in city towers look much more colorful and interesting.

But, sadly, most of the time town looks dull.
I think these towers with big windows all over around them can be that unique feature which altmer towns needed.
If ZOS can make towers look most of the time as interesting as at screenshot above that will be cool. If window glass at this towers will have good transparency and reflection they can be like beautiful beacons in the town. At day and at night.

But again, sadly, most of the time in the video town looks dull, maybe in game it will be better in motion.

As for malachite roofs with this type of roofs and the big number of towers and homes it can be too much, it may looks like Emerald city. Don't want to recolor this image, but you can imagine.

psychotrip wrote: »

3. They're only giving Summerset one single building style, while Morrowind got three. It seems they ran out of ideas pretty fast.

Don't know how it exactly said in lore, but three building style in Morrowind can be consequence of separation to Great houses, long isolation and different living conditions. I think altmers at Summerset don't have that problems, so they have overall similar architecture style. But maybe we can see Sload architecture, some buildings made of corals, maybe more.

Aliyavana

XomRhoK wrote: »

Recently i again watched two videos from twitch Summerset announcement, which are not available at www.elderscrollsonline.com. And they show much more altmer architecture than gameplay trailer video.
first video
second video
And in some shots windows in city towers look much more colorful and interesting.

But, sadly, most of the time town looks dull.
I think these towers with big windows all over around them can be that unique feature which altmer towns needed.
If ZOS can make towers look most of the time as interesting as at screenshot above that will be cool. If window glass at this towers will have good transparency and reflection they can be like beautiful beacons in the town. At day and at night.

But again, sadly, most of the time in the video town looks dull, maybe in game it will be better in motion.

As for malachite roofs with this type of roofs and the big number of towers and homes it can be too much, it may looks like Emerald city. Don't want to recolor this image, but you can imagine.

psychotrip wrote: »

3. They're only giving Summerset one single building style, while Morrowind got three. It seems they ran out of ideas pretty fast.

Don't know how it exactly said in lore, but three building style in Morrowind can be consequence of separation to Great houses, long isolation and different living conditions. I think altmers at Summerset don't have that problems, so they have overall similar architecture style. But maybe we can see Sload architecture, some buildings made of corals, maybe more.

Your suggestion of malachite roofs of important building can work as well

Ajaxandriel

Indeed, something nice is doable while keeping the gothic architecture. Your 1st pic illustrates this well !

XomRhoK wrote: »

As for malachite roofs with this type of roofs and the big number of towers and homes it can be too much, it may looks like Emerald city. Don't want to recolor this image, but you can imagine.

I really think this very sentence "it can be too much" is what misleaded the art team regarding Summerset structures! There should not be such a matter. Do not hesitate on blinding colorful rays everywhere!
Summerset have not to be simply a "good place to live", it should be an eye-aggression for any non-altmer ! A dreadful place in truth hahaha

Glass shards as a mosaic would fit

Okiir wrote: »

Just for fun I googled "pretty and whimsical castle". This was the first result:


Is it just me or did Zenimax copy this?

Oh if they did....

Vhozek

If they can't make buildings out of glass in Summerset Isles then at LEAST make them out of some fancy white marble with gold.

psychotrip

Vhozek wrote: »

If they can't make buildings out of glass in Summerset Isles then at LEAST make them out of some fancy white marble with gold.

But don't you know that's not "realistic" or "grounded" enough? Clearly people can only make buildings out of grey stones. Even a supposedly magical, advanced civilization that could only be conquered by a giant robot god! What next: buildings made poetry?

-Zenimax, probably.

Faulgor

Vhozek wrote: »

If they can't make buildings out of glass in Summerset Isles then at LEAST make them out of some fancy white marble with gold.

Thinking a bit more about it, I think the most fitting material for Altmer that has these shining, rainbow-like qualities is not glass or crystal or gold, but nacre/mother of pearl.
It's much more subdued, and fits the marine culture of the Altmer perfectly. Nacre mosaics are also pretty common in our world, so it shouldn't have been too strange for ZOS to think of.

psychotrip

Faulgor wrote: »

Vhozek wrote: »

If they can't make buildings out of glass in Summerset Isles then at LEAST make them out of some fancy white marble with gold.

Thinking a bit more about it, I think the most fitting material for Altmer that has these shining, rainbow-like qualities is not glass or crystal or gold, but nacre/mother of pearl.
It's much more subdued, and fits the marine culture of the Altmer perfectly. Nacre mosaics are also pretty common in our world, so it shouldn't have been too strange for ZOS to think of.

All these creative, unique ideas are wasted on Zenimax. Their decision to make Summerset yet another medieval european fantasy realm leaves us with nothing but missed opportunity. This place could have been amazing.

Aliyavana

glass roofs! glass roofs!

Acrolas

Synthetic mother-of-pearl is a lot stronger than natural mother-of-pearl, though. It's the protein embedded in calcium carbonate along with how it's all structurally stacked that give it its strength.

The chitinous buildings in Vvardenfell were fortified with stone for a similar reason. Chitin doesn't mineralize so it's a lighter but also more fragile substance. Allowing chitin to grow around stone makes the chitin much tougher.

Magic can explain away a lot of things, but I can appreciate how a lot of the infrastructure confirms that Tamriel knows building techniques but not necessarily the complex scientific principles behind them. As Arthur C. Clarke put it, "Magic's just science that we don't understand yet.”

A statement sure to infuriate an Altmer.

Korah_Eaglecry

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

grizzledcroc wrote: »

Whenever they do there lore question stream this should be asked heavily .

You and I both know they'll ignore us.

This very much, but it's worth trying anyway.

Youll be competing heavily with the "What about PvP!?!!??!?!" Crowd.

Aliyavana

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

grizzledcroc wrote: »

Whenever they do there lore question stream this should be asked heavily .

You and I both know they'll ignore us.

This very much, but it's worth trying anyway.

Youll be competing heavily with the "What about PvP!?!!??!?!" Crowd.

the pvp crowd and the lore crowd are separate, one is concerned with balance and one is concerned with aesthetics. For the lore crowd it would require the art team, for pvp the balance team. So it will not take away time from one another

Grimm13

JD2013 wrote: »

Nothing will ever match anyone's headcanon. Which is why headcanon is exactly that.

I think Summerset looks fine. The white stone very likely would glimmer in the sun.

It has impossibly tall looking ramparts and towers.

I also think people might have missed the part in lore where Altmer are generally quite conservative and not really prone to whimsy and bouts of fancy. Their land probably would not look romantic and poetic and the such. I imagine it would be functional.

Artaeum also looks quite interesting.

Architecture is not really whimsical. Used for practical means. It is long lasting just like the Altmer. Knowing that they would be seeing these structures for a long time they would aspire to make them as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as possible. The respect of nature would be expressed by them by limiting the expansion of city limits by looking upwards to expand. in practicality this would bring the use a walkways to connect the growing heights.

We see the Bosmer that has taken this a step further by using the trees themselves. The Dunmer that also actually uses nature in they buildings. Both of these lines aspired to use grown materials from nature or even cultivated to their needs instead of the Altmer that used long lasting materials.

The description of insect wings used in the Altmer building descriptions speaks of the use of stained glass beauty. The inspiration would have been the insects but lasting practicality would be to use much stronger materials to emulate.

I can see ZOS not wanting to use the golden Spiral of the Nautilus shell as that would be speaking of the Moarmer.

What we see so far does not speak to me as who they have laid out the Altmer philosophical views of Nature. They have clearly lost a resource when who ever left that kept this line of thinking in design. This is clearly evident to the fans and ZOS/ Bethesda needs to regain this perspective to keep the line alive.

TelvanniWizard

It´s like the art department has grown stale on ideas. Or they don´t care at all.

dodgehopper_ESO

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

I think the architecture is great.

People say it looks "too human" but you forget that human architecture was derived from elven architecture. And Summerset definitely looks like a cleaner, more refined version of the Breton architecture we've seen in the game.

I would also like to point out that the White-Gold tower is supposedly built by the Elves. If this is the case I find it quite believable that Summerset would look similar. The ancient Ayleids had a lot more in common with the ancient Altmer. I do believe it would be strange if Summerset did not have the light collectors though, or as a friend calls them 'Ayleid Dunny'.

dodgehopper_ESO

The Elf architecture strikes me as very Italian. There are even some examples of this with the Dunmer, although I would argue their style is more influenced by India, Thailand, China and other Asian nations. I'm speaking purely to the stupa-like designs and such, the paper lanterns, the pointy edges, the kris-dagger style swords and points on buildings, etc. Clearly Dunmer are an odd example as they have quite a bit of bug-and-mushroom fantasy going on but I can still see elements of the Roman in their styles. What I find interesting however is that the Ayleids were at one point very much the same people as the Altmer. One presumes that the Ayleid was a proto-Altmer or Aldmer originally and that this race of elves were very much the cousin of the Altmer. When you see their ruins and sculptures they look Greco-Roman. I am not at all shocked by the appearance of some of the structures that I admit I would like to see some of the strange corals and sweeping wings and swirling bits and doodads, particularly given the oddity of the more striking Dunmer structures. Their representation of the isle of Artaeum does in a manner begin to go into that realm I think.

(As an aside I find it interesting some of the ancient Indian style architecture of the Nedes, which is interesting because part of what the Proto-Indians were was actually Greek.).

Faulgor

This still leaves me no rest. But you can only polish a turd so much.
It will still look like a Disney castle no matter what.

Apache_Kid

zadrotscrolls wrote: »

Very cool

Acrolas

Grimm13 wrote: »

The description of insect wings used in the Altmer building descriptions speaks of the use of stained glass beauty.

It doesn't necessarily, though.

Like I mentioned in another thread, the way brick was rendered in Redguard makes it look like glass shards or insect wings. Also, a drunken sailor would not know the difference between a hindwing and a forewing. The elytra wouldn't emulate stained glass so much as they would shiny, iridescent bricks.

But it's irrelevant now. There's no more theorizing what Alfiers looks like. She's here.