The cities, all look the same and some questions.

craybest

when you get to to the DLCs you'll see it's better in there and more varied.

Red_Feather

Daggerfall cities look kind of samey and flat to me. I don't hang around that part of the world too much as it depresses me!

craybest

i think highrock is the worst of them too. way too generic and too little variation in cities. they really could have done a better job

this uses the same style of architecture and is much more varied, different colored buildigs, bricks, etc. most highrock cities are all the same shade of grey for buildings, roads, stairs, everything.
Summerset also disappointed me a bit, since all cities are white, instead of more color variation too, but still it's much better designed than most vanilla ones.
my favorite one is Hew's bane. I think it's the most succefully created and designed in the whole game, it does feel like a real city.

redlink1979

1) I disagree.... The cities are different, in size shape and architecture related to the .... All related to the cultural icons used by the region's races...

2) Regarding lore: lore is omitted in many parts, writers tend to explore that....

3) As in real life, not all buildings/constructions are named according to their location...

4) Cyrodiil is a war zone remember? How many active war zones in the world do you know that aren't destroyed or totally destroyed?!?

Elsonso

ProfessionalNoob wrote: »

2. I know that Windhelm was built and destroyed many times but in skyrim as i know it its know that the Palace Of The King is the only building that remained as in the beginning.

Why would you think that?

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

ProfessionalNoob wrote: »

2. I know that Windhelm was built and destroyed many times but in skyrim as i know it its know that the Palace Of The King is the only building that remained as in the beginning.

Why would you think that?

Don't expect comprehensive answer.

Red_Feather

craybest wrote: »

i think highrock is the worst of them too. way too generic and too little variation in cities. they really could have done a better job

this uses the same style of architecture and is much more varied, different colored buildigs, bricks, etc. most highrock cities are all the same shade of grey for buildings, roads, stairs, everything.
Summerset also disappointed me a bit, since all cities are white, instead of more color variation too, but still it's much better designed than most vanilla ones.
my favorite one is Hew's bane. I think it's the most succefully created and designed in the whole game, it does feel like a real city.

It took a witcher screenshot to make me realize how much variety a city has between adjacent buildings. Now I understand the OP. yeah ESO cities do look like they have been mass produced by a government for people to live in. Now I can't unsee that.

Royaji

Red_Feather wrote: »

craybest wrote: »

i think highrock is the worst of them too. way too generic and too little variation in cities. they really could have done a better job

this uses the same style of architecture and is much more varied, different colored buildigs, bricks, etc. most highrock cities are all the same shade of grey for buildings, roads, stairs, everything.
Summerset also disappointed me a bit, since all cities are white, instead of more color variation too, but still it's much better designed than most vanilla ones.
my favorite one is Hew's bane. I think it's the most succefully created and designed in the whole game, it does feel like a real city.

It took a witcher screenshot to make me realize how much variety a city has between adjacent buildings. Now I understand the OP. yeah ESO cities do look like they have been mass produced by a government for people to live in. Now I can't unsee that.

What is possible in a game with one major city and a couple of smaller settlements just isn't feasible in a MMO. DLC cities look more detailed because they can spend a whole year working on one zone. With 15 base game zones ESO had to be in development since 1990s just to match that.

craybest

Royaji wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

craybest wrote: »

i think highrock is the worst of them too. way too generic and too little variation in cities. they really could have done a better job

this uses the same style of architecture and is much more varied, different colored buildigs, bricks, etc. most highrock cities are all the same shade of grey for buildings, roads, stairs, everything.
Summerset also disappointed me a bit, since all cities are white, instead of more color variation too, but still it's much better designed than most vanilla ones.
my favorite one is Hew's bane. I think it's the most succefully created and designed in the whole game, it does feel like a real city.

It took a witcher screenshot to make me realize how much variety a city has between adjacent buildings. Now I understand the OP. yeah ESO cities do look like they have been mass produced by a government for people to live in. Now I can't unsee that.

What is possible in a game with one major city and a couple of smaller settlements just isn't feasible in a MMO. DLC cities look more detailed because they can spend a whole year working on one zone. With 15 base game zones ESO had to be in development since 1990s just to match that.

each city has let's say 10 different buildings, the problem with some of them is that the 10 of them are waay to alike. they could still have the same 10 buildings, but have them be a bit more different from eachother, and that alone would be a vast improvement.
I'm not saying cities should be as huge and as well made as novigrad, it's an example on architecture variation within a same style. that's all.

starkerealm

Red_Feather wrote: »

craybest wrote: »

i think highrock is the worst of them too. way too generic and too little variation in cities. they really could have done a better job

this uses the same style of architecture and is much more varied, different colored buildigs, bricks, etc. most highrock cities are all the same shade of grey for buildings, roads, stairs, everything.
Summerset also disappointed me a bit, since all cities are white, instead of more color variation too, but still it's much better designed than most vanilla ones.
my favorite one is Hew's bane. I think it's the most succefully created and designed in the whole game, it does feel like a real city.

It took a witcher screenshot to make me realize how much variety a city has between adjacent buildings. Now I understand the OP. yeah ESO cities do look like they have been mass produced by a government for people to live in. Now I can't unsee that.

Not for nothing, but there are large swaths of Novigrad that do look copy pasted. There are a few parts of the city, particularly in the market and the Diplomat quarter, that work to create a multicultural theme. Elsewhere, you'll see much more unified construction themes.

The Witcher 3 is, arguably, a bigger offender, because there are only 3 architectural styles, (4 if you count Blood and Wine), with a few unique buildings sprinkled through the game.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

I'd expect the cities and towns of a particular race or ethnicity to share common architectural characteristics. After all that is part of what makes them unique from the other races/ethnicity. I think there is a lot of architectural variation from one race/ethnicity to another. It's one thing I think EOS does well unlike some other MMO's where whole alliances share the same architecture across all races.

Sylvis

Hasn't it been stated multiple times by the devs that they began development for ESO before Skyrim? And by different studios?

Vevvev

The forts and castles in Cyrodiil are named after the forts and castles that have always been in... well... Cyrodiil. If you played Oblivion you can actually find these forts and explore their dungeons and stuff.

Now that I think of it imagine having to go underground to fully capture a fort in ESO. Would be like the original Planetside where the bases had multistory interiors you could fight through.

Varana

Also, why the assumption that Skyrim's representation was "right", and ESO's was "wrong"?
It could just be the other way around - Skyrim's got it wrong.
Just because it was released earlier, doesn't mean it's more right. If that were the criterion, this would be the lore-correct version of Windhelm:

No mountain in sight anywhere! Skyrim didn't respect the lore!

Or you could just take it as it is - symbolic representations of a fictional world dictated by game engine and time constraints, and not be too bothered about it.

AcadianPaladin

I'm afraid I also disagree with OP.

I see plenty of variety among even basic alliance cities (like Elden Root vs Bergama).

I embrace the concept that lore is a tool to be used to enhance the story/game; not a weapon to restrict creativity. I see evidence ranging throughout the Elder Scrolls series of tweaking and adjusting lore to suit the intent of the newest game in the series. Each game in the series has come under criticism for 'butchering the lore' but, as I said, I generally embrace the creative decisions that Bethesda and/or ZOS has made. Sometimes it can get fairly extreme - Oblivion was criticized for turning Cyrodiil from jungle into medieval forest and plains yet, on balance, Oblivion remains my fave of all the Elder Scrolls games.

Sylvermynx

Sheesh. Play the game, quit agonizing over pixels.

starkerealm

Varana wrote: »

Also, why the assumption that Skyrim's representation was "right", and ESO's was "wrong"?
It could just be the other way around - Skyrim's got it wrong.
Just because it was released earlier, doesn't mean it's more right. If that were the criterion, this would be the lore-correct version of Windhelm:

No mountain in sight anywhere! Skyrim didn't respect the lore!

Or you could just take it as it is - symbolic representations of a fictional world dictated by game engine and time constraints, and not be too bothered about it.

Only thing that bugs me about Windhelm, and Eastmarch as a whole, is that it isn't really conclusive to adding Winterhold in the future. The road north out of Eastmarch doesn't exist, and the map crowds too far north. It also blocks the Velothi Mountains, meaning we'll probably never see Blacklight either.