So...if the Altmer are an ancient culture who strive for perfection...

psychotrip

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

TheUndeadAmulet

It makes sense because, you know, they are in a war rn. I don't think perfect tailoring is on their priority list, more actually being able to equip every soldier properly.

Aliyavana

I really think that the old armors need a remodel. You place old armor against new models and it looks like they are from different games.

psychotrip

TheUndeadAmulet wrote: »

It makes sense because, you know, they are in a war rn. I don't perfect tailoring is on their priority list, more actually being able to equip every soldier properly.

But I thought the Altmer put their best into everything? It seems the "lesser races" have no problem making decent clothes. So whats the Altmers' excuse?



The Altmer are primitive beasts masquerading as superior beings. It's all just been propaganda and transcription errors! Open your eyes and see the truth!

max_only

Their goblin servants manufacture the low level clothes.

SickleCider

The stitching is far from the only thing wrong with that armor. Yikes.

psychotrip

Aliyavana wrote: »

I really think that the old armors need a remodel

Even when the old armors came out, the Altmer style was hilariously shoddy-looking. I honestly think Zenimax hates the Altmer sometimes. They seem determined to make all their claims of superiority and advanced culture seem like a joke. Everything they do seems to be made to take them down a peg and make every other race seem more interesting and competent at their expense.

I mean seriously...look at this...

Argonian


The Altmer: the most ancient and allegedly "advanced" culture in all of Tamriel

VaranisArano

The Altmer can't even keep their ballroom floors clean and polished. Apparently they like the classical "timeworn and put together by a craftsman's brand new apprentice" look in general.

But their cabinetry, now. That stuff gets polished to a high shine.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I would also like to add complaints about the loose stones in the streets of the cities - there are no construction crews to excuse or explain their presence, and no warning markers posted nearby. If a random Saxhleel can get fined for loitering somebody needs to get fined for the obvious tripping hazards posed by the loose stones.

TheUndeadAmulet wrote: »

I don't think perfect tailoring is on their priority list

You don't know the Altmer very well. Perfection is supposed to be one of their defining traits as a culture.

Davor

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Altmer can't even keep their ballroom floors clean and polished. Apparently they like the classical "timeworn and put together by a craftsman's brand new apprentice" look in general.

See what happens when we let out landers in.

psychotrip

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

I would also like to add complaints about the loose stones in the streets of the cities - there are no construction crews to excuse or explain their presence, and no warning markers posted nearby. If a random Saxhleel can get fined for loitering somebody needs to get fined for the obvious tripping hazards posed by the loose stones.

TheUndeadAmulet wrote: »

I don't think perfect tailoring is on their priority list

You don't know the Altmer very well. Perfection is supposed to be one of their defining traits as a culture.

To be fair there's a lot of stuff Altmer culture is "supposed" to be like that Zenimax decides to change on a whim to suit their current needs...Even most of the stuff from Oblivion's lore is completely absent (Remember the sunbirds and the orrery at firsthold?)

The Altmer are just generic, boring humans with pointy ears. Even the khajiit seem more sophisticated than altmer in basically every possible way.

Lavish, decorative, elegant, colorful cities...




Generic, gray, stone brick hovels. Tall, but otherwise mundane and primitive


(This honestly looks more nordic than altmer but...yeah this is what we get)

Davor wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Altmer can't even keep their ballroom floors clean and polished. Apparently they like the classical "timeworn and put together by a craftsman's brand new apprentice" look in general.

See what happens when we let out landers in.

We get to see how everything about your culture was a lie? You've been exposed! Exposed, I say!

usmguy1234

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

psychotrip

usmguy1234 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

It just wracks my brain. Why do they have so much trouble with the Altmer? They've created such incredible designs for the other races, even when the game first launched. I just don't understand why they either cannot or will not allow the Altmer to be creative in any conceivable way. We had an entire expansion about them and the best they could come up with is medieval europe...again.

max_only

usmguy1234 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

Coders and artists are two different groups of people.

psychotrip

max_only wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

Coders and artists are two different groups of people.

Also valid. Poor use of words. The sentiment is still true, I feel.

usmguy1234

max_only wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

Coders and artists are two different groups of people.

max_only wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

It's because it's the best zos' coders could come up with.

Coders and artists are two different groups of people.

Awesome you got the joke

ArchMikem

That's Rank 1 isn't it? Those low tier armors are meant to look crappily put together. Their quality is meant to increase along with your advancement in Crafting skill. Besides if you want a Lore explanation, the Altmer are in the middle of a War, and conflict breeds a demand for material so high that quality takes a back seat to Quantity that just barely gets the job done. Just look at Second World War Germany, they put insane quality into their armored vehicles and yet had their butts kicked by much more numerous tanks that were nothing but welded metal plates with a gun on top.

What is your General gonna want more? One really well tailored suit of leathers, or a thousand pieces of crap that still does the job?

max_only

ArchMikem wrote: »

That's Rank 1 isn't it? Those low tier armors are meant to look crappily put together. Their quality is meant to increase along with your advancement in Crafting skill. Besides if you want a Lore explanation, the Altmer are in the middle of a War, and conflict breeds a demand for material so high that quality takes a back seat to Quantity that just barely gets the job done. Just look at Second World War Germany, they put insane quality into their armored vehicles and yet had their butts kicked by much more numerous tanks that were nothing but welded metal plates with a gun on top.

What is your General gonna want more? One really well tailored suit of leathers, or a thousand pieces of crap that still does the job?

Oh man, this is juicy and ripe for a Hugo Boss reference but it’s too early for Godwin’s Law.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

psychotrip wrote: »

We get to see how everything about your culture was a lie? You've been exposed! Exposed, I say!

No that was the bug where peoples' clothes weren't rendering.

This - and by this I mean the entire watering down of Aldmeri culture - is a plothole. Because somehow we have the people who put the stars in the sky losing to the people whose crowning achievement now is having paperwork for everything. If the Altmer have a space program, super-advanced magic, built the Towers that hold the Mundus together etc, it makes sense that they could beat down the Nedes. But without that, then we somehow need to explain how a bunch of mer with no notable magic-tech, normal tech, or combat prowess managed to win that fight. At the very least, I would expect an epic ballad about how some Direnni ancestor crushed a Nedic artificer to death under a mound of paperwork!

psychotrip

ArchMikem wrote: »

That's Rank 1 isn't it? Those low tier armors are meant to look crappily put together. Their quality is meant to increase along with your advancement in Crafting skill. Besides if you want a Lore explanation, the Altmer are in the middle of a War, and conflict breeds a demand for material so high that quality takes a back seat to Quantity that just barely gets the job done. Just look at Second World War Germany, they put insane quality into their armored vehicles and yet had their butts kicked by much more numerous tanks that were nothing but welded metal plates with a gun on top.

What is your General gonna want more? One really well tailored suit of leathers, or a thousand pieces of crap that still does the job?

Even if you compare the low tier armors side by side it's just laughable. Apparently the other races have no problem making clothing that doesn't look like it's barely held together. Why is it so hard for the Altmer?

psychotrip

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

We get to see how everything about your culture was a lie? You've been exposed! Exposed, I say!

No that was the bug where peoples' clothes weren't rendering.

This - and by this I mean the entire watering down of Aldmeri culture - is a plothole. Because somehow we have the people who put the stars in the sky losing to the people whose crowning achievement now is having paperwork for everything. If the Altmer have a space program, super-advanced magic, built the Towers that hold the Mundus together etc, it makes sense that they could beat down the Nedes. But without that, then we somehow need to explain how a bunch of mer with no notable magic-tech, normal tech, or combat prowess managed to win that fight. At the very least, I would expect an epic ballad about how some Direnni ancestor crushed a Nedic artificer to death under a mound of paperwork!

It's absolutely hilarious when you put it that way, and goes to my larger point (if I put aside my stupid humor).

At every turn Zenimax seems determined to tone the Altmer down from previous descriptions, while other races get to be weird and powerful and advanced and colorful.

Isn't it odd that the devs decided to claim Tamriel was a "mundane world", and that people wouldn't notice if magic left it? Isn't it odd that they decided to use that excuse after we just visited an island with a giant meteor suspended in time? And fought off magitech robots? And discovered ancient tribals who put the stars in the sky? Also...did they just forget that the damn sun is a giant ball of magic? What changed?

Oh yeah, the newest expansion is about the Altmer, so everything has to be suddenly "realistic". It's just so jarring when you put it in perspective like that.

So to your point, how did the Altmer compete with the other races? Races with living gods, complex irrigation (ever been to vivec or mournhold in the original games?) continent spanning empires? They're just another medieval european fantasy race.

Hell, why did the Empire even need to use a giant robot god to conquer them? It looks like it'd be easy for Talos to conquer Summerset now that we've seen it's nothing special.

max_only

Between the late 80s and today we’ve made enormous leaps forward in technology and refinement. Whose to say that the Altmer we see now aren’t just in their 1975 phase?

psychotrip

max_only wrote: »

Between the late 80s and today we’ve made enormous leaps forward in technology and refinement. Whose to say that the Altmer we see now aren’t just in their 1975 phase?

Because that's a convenient excuse that's inconsistent with everything else in the game. It also assumes that all the stuff Zenimax said was too "unrealistic" for the Altmer will suddenly become realistic in a few hundred years. It assumes that all those "exaggerations" were somehow prophetic.

The chimer could create a modern (or at least industrialized) sewage system with metal pipes in the first era. Check out Old Mournhold in TES III and really look closely.

Vivec's town-sized cantons require a complex ventilation system to function. They also somehow purify water from the canals and pump it UPWARD to the top of these town-sized buildings so clean water can pour downward through the water fountains. This requires either advanced, sustainable magic, or an advanced understanding of fluids, pressure, and the tools necessary to accomplish such a feat.

The Dunmer also seem to have superior wizards who can build entire cities with their magic and even clone people (Divayth's daughter's, Dram the assassin). Just with a cursory glance at other races, you can see that even the most mundane aspects of their lives are improved with their magic and engineering skills.

I could go on and on about the gargantuan buildings of the nedes and nords, with mechanized doors, mechanized traps, and other complex feats of engineering, but you get the idea.

Almost every other race seems either on par with or beyond the Altmer. Everything they have is either inferior or an aldmer hand-me-down Even if we buy the "technology advances" argument, The Altmer still seem way behind.

If anything, this feels more like the difference between ancient, advanced civilizations like Greece, Rome, Egypt etc., and more primitive medieval civilizations from the so-called "dark ages". Fitting that the Altmer live in such a blatant medieval rip-off island.

Zenimax just seems to determined to make the Altmer as "normal" as possible, and it's just becoming silly.

crjs1

The lower tier stuff from the base game is just bad... with ridiculous stitching. But many of the NPCs in Summerset are beautiful and refined. Same goes for recent Altmer costumes. For example see the crown store showcase from July https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/26431

I would love ZOS to revamp base zone and base NPC graphics but doubt it will happen.

Summerset though is great and showcases Altmer refinement.

psychotrip

crjs1 wrote: »

The lower tier stuff from the base game is just bad... with ridiculous stitching. But many of the NPCs in Summerset are beautiful and refined. Same goes for recent Altmer costumes. For example see the crown store showcase from July https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/26431

I would love ZOS to revamp base zone and base NPC graphics but doubt it will happen.

Summerset though is great and showcases Altmer refinement.

The new stuff is an improvement, yes (though of course they make you pay for half decent altmer clothes when none of it exists for free). Still, even if you compare the original Altmer gear with that of other races, it's still jarring in its ugliness. I still just can't figure out why Zenimax went for that look when they didn't feel the need to do it to the other races. It just seems like a sick joke.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Let's not forget that Auridon has what is basically a magical Aldmeri cannon. No explanation for why they don't have more of these near, say, Sunhold...

psychotrip wrote: »

The Dunmer also seem to have superior wizards who can build entire cities with their magic and even clone people

Minor point: Divayth doesn't seem to have cloned his "daughters" yet. Or at least they haven't shown up that I've seen and he hasn't mentioned them in his dialog.

Salvas_Aren

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

Looks like some second hand pirates' gear with a new Dominion helmet that matches the color scheme.

psychotrip

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Let's not forget that Auridon has what is basically a magical Aldmeri cannon. No explanation for why they don't have more of these near, say, Sunhold...

psychotrip wrote: »

The Dunmer also seem to have superior wizards who can build entire cities with their magic and even clone people

Minor point: Divayth doesn't seem to have cloned his "daughters" yet. Or at least they haven't shown up that I've seen and he hasn't mentioned them in his dialog.

Valid. I think Dram is already alive though (I'll have to check the timeline I think). According to the devs, he was literally inspired by Boba Fett.

psychotrip

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

...Why do their clothes have giant, ugly stitches patched onto them?



Checkmate, Elves. Get some damn tailors.

Looks like some second hand pirates' gear with a new Dominion helmet that matches the color scheme.

Yup. These are the fabled, advanced, mysterious Altmer that even Tiber Septim couldn't conquer without a giant time-breaking robot god...and yet they can't stitch a damn shirt together.

Salvas_Aren

Maybe these were sewn by the children that are kept hidden from the vestiges?

Or they don't look like second hand pirates' gear, they ARR second hand pirates' gear with a new helmet.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

Maybe these were sewn by the children that are kept hidden from the vestiges?

Or they don't look like second hand pirates' gear, they ARR second hand pirates' gear with a new helmet.

Except even before they got an official Motif the Maormer were still better dressed in Ancient Elf.