Imagine if Imperials looked this amazing

Aztrias

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FNcqLrJZVAQ

Nibenese(Credit: Pulcharmsolis)




https://nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/84971

Kirkbride:


Colovian (Credit: Pulcharmsolis)

https://nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/79894



Kirkbride:



Instead of the tame Mediterranean Renaissance+Roman lite version we have in the games, seriously imperials could have been even cooler than the Dunmer, but instead we got fantasy mediocrity(Oblivion being the worst offender)

rootkitronin

One of my favorite Skyrim mod authors - the designs are so well done and implemented. Real-world inspirations that make sense, mixed with actual lore, and fantastic creativity, love their work.

They've also done an amazing suite of Dunmer-themed armors as well.

The mod author's work can be found here:
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/122433248?tab=user+files

That Ferrum Nibenis set sent me down a rabbit hole reading up on the Etruscans and other proto-Roman civilizations and peoples. Even tried to make an ESO armor inspired by the sets in that release. Really happy to see someone else sharing their work.

Aztrias

Another great one by ulcharmsolis:




I kind of always envisoned Colovians having a bit of Slavic and East Roman(Byzantine) element to them. Though I fear that when we do get a Colovian DLC it will be Hollywood medieval with some Roman elements again:(

colossalvoids

Yeah that's what was severely lacking in Oblivion and got progressively worse. Kirkbrideian ones (that Pulch and BS team took as inspo) are much superior and having unique flavours to it that are capturing spirit of early tes really well. One reason to custom build outfits from scrap instead of using racial styles in vacuum.

Wish eso had less tame designers at times that were also looking at old Beth catalogue of sketches for inspiration, there's a ton of actual gold there. I'm even sure Cadwell was directly inspired by Kirkbride's breton mage art, the one with a hoove, so it's not that they're unaware of it's existence.

Aztrias

LanteanPegasus

I have to confess that I'm actually glad we have more of the "tame" Roman design, and less "fighting in plated dresses and layers of skirts" as shown in the first post... But tastes differ, of course.
I do prefer Roman references over Asian ones for the Empire, because ever since I started with Morrowind that's what it mostly reminded me of.

Aztrias

Yes tastes differ but they aren't even tame Roman design it's mostly generic Medieval fantasy with some bad psuedo roman armor design tacked on, I personally would prefer something unique like a little mix of Scythian/Slavic/Byzantine for Colovians and to make them a bit less generic western europan fantasy, and if Nibense were a bit a Southeast Asian inspired it would make a much stronger distinction between the two cultures.

Sadly Imperials after Oblivion are just Bretons with a slight Roman flair, there are a lot of cool irl world historical cultures that are never explored or taken as inspiration in fantasy.

Dr_Con

imagine if we could lag even more by loading peoples character models

rootkitronin

@Aztrias Thank you for the concept art posts and historical photos/illustrations - absolutely love this stuff!

colossalvoids

LanteanPegasus wrote: »

I have to confess that I'm actually glad we have more of the "tame" Roman design, and less "fighting in plated dresses and layers of skirts" as shown in the first post... But tastes differ, of course.
I do prefer Roman references over Asian ones for the Empire, because ever since I started with Morrowind that's what it mostly reminded me of.

Personally I think that more flavours the better in a way, it's surely not about changing tes recent direction entirely but taking bit more textures with cloth parts, more different types of mails like lamellar to the mix might be a subtle touch that can bring some hinted cultural aspects a bit more. We still have close to zero distinction between colovians and nibenese and that's kinda a shame that there could be literally two imperial styles instead of one, covering more ground with historical references etc.

kynesgrove

colossalvoids wrote: »

LanteanPegasus wrote: »

I have to confess that I'm actually glad we have more of the "tame" Roman design, and less "fighting in plated dresses and layers of skirts" as shown in the first post... But tastes differ, of course.
I do prefer Roman references over Asian ones for the Empire, because ever since I started with Morrowind that's what it mostly reminded me of.

Personally I think that more flavours the better in a way, it's surely not about changing tes recent direction entirely but taking bit more textures with cloth parts, more different types of mails like lamellar to the mix might be a subtle touch that can bring some hinted cultural aspects a bit more. We still have close to zero distinction between colovians and nibenese and that's kinda a shame that there could be literally two imperial styles instead of one, covering more ground with historical references etc.

(I am going to reiterate a lot of your point in my response here, but I truly am just so passionate about it too.)

I agree, there is definitely a middle ground that can be afforded.

They already did this with Legion Zero styles having so many Daedric spiky touches, just to let you know these are the super bad Imperials.
I do appreciate the Nibenese Court Wizard attire, but we have so little softer fabric light armours representing professions besides noble outfits and legion specific gear, that it's hard to really tell which aspects of it is supposed to represent the Niben culture.

• Maybe its the tame tassel features on the hem of the ensemble?
• The lack of geometric Greek meander?
• The fact that it is just a very simple robe design with no obtuse diamonds and dragons?
• (I do love the little ropes and stamped patterning, but I have no in game reference to refer to in order to identify if its Nibenese related or not)

As for the noble costumes there is no true variation in style between:

• Nibenese Noble's Shawled Robe
• Elder Council Tunic and Sash
• Cyrod Gentry's Town Gown

They all have the same accents and style approach. Besides the fact that it's all noble themed.

That simply cannot be the identity of Nibenese cloth work or wear. It needs more distinct patterns to truly show the River Folk. I assume the ESO approaches the envisioning of the Imperial folk as Oblivion had stated it:

The Jerall city of Bruma, though Nibenese in customs, boasts an architectural style that is more Nordic in design. Similarly, there are aspects of Dunmeri architecture in the eastern city of Cheydinhal

There is obviously an effort to combine and show Imperial adaptability.

Much like how the Imperials in Senchal were inspired by the Khajiit living in the hot humid jungles.
Or Leyawiin, for example, is presented with more sea/river creature and snake orientated motifs from their area, as well as Argonian inspiration for wading through the swamp.

But the problem lies with the cultural attire without influence.

Its that the two main regions of the empire itself has lost its distinctness, if it every had any in any in the first place. Besides all the concept explorations. Both cultures depict the same motifs: diamonds, greek patterns, dragon iconography, jagged shapes and hard lines.

I'd even argue that the difference between the two cultures can be as subtly represented yet distinct as Nords vs Bretons within ESO. (Bretons lacking variation is a whole other can of worms too)

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Nah... i actually prefer what we got in game

Aztrias

Aesthetically Elder Scrolls could have been something unique(as we saw in Morrowind and PGE 1) compared to the dozen run to the mill video game fantasy franchises out there, but I guess that's what sells.

Also ESO is set almost 1000 years before the mainline Elder Scrolls games and yet the cultures and technology is almost exactly the same.

TaSheen

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Nah... i actually prefer what we got in game

So do I!

menedhyn

Aztrias wrote: »

Instead of the tame Mediterranean Renaissance+Roman lite version we have in the games, seriously imperials could have been even cooler than the Dunmer, but instead we got fantasy mediocrity(Oblivion being the worst offender)

Agree. Fascinating post.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

I don't like all of the things shown here, since I like it when imperials have the Greco-Roman aesethetic, with some touches from other places such as Byzantine and Asian. The Imperial City before TES IV was described a bit like a massive and fantastical Venice, so Mediterranean suits them.

But they don't really have that either. Some costumes are it, and styles like Order of the Hour. But a lot of the other styles feels very generic ESO styles, or generic medieval fantasy, which TES IV really went ham on with them.
There's also no destinct difference between Colovians and Nibenese, which there's supposed to be, and has been an issue since TES IV. One would expect to see some Akaviri influenced themes as well, like the Hakoshae we only got to see a little in Elsweyr. Then of course the near border cities like Bruma, Cheydinhall, and Leyawiin have been influenced by the people of the neighbouring provinces, but that's not really seen.
Of course, Cyrodiil suffer a lot from not only being a pvp area, but mainly being base game. Almost all base game zones are rather bland and not well done.

ZOS doesn't seem to even try fix things or spice things up. Blackwood is an insult to the Nibenese and the cultural melting pot with lots of conflict the area is supposed to be. There's some painted stucco walls, but a culture which is known for its decadence and often described as gaudy, it's almost spartan. I expected to see some mosaic at least! Not to mention there's little insight to the area and most focus is on daedra and whatnot in the chapter. Don't get me started on the mess that is the Niben River.

Imperials in ESO feels like some recolour of bretons they can often use as bad guys. The base game furniture literally is just recolour breton. Bretons even took some of the Mediterranean part with High Isle, and they got drawbridges to let ships through, meanwhile Leyawiin got bridges that doesn't make sense, a tiny Niben, and lore breaking book to excuse it all.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Since ZOS are able to add new stuff, they could for the first time introduce Mir Corrup, which is supposed to be an imperial city located "in the mainland, nowhere near the water", that is often a resort for nobles. Which I remember ZOS described High Isle as at one point...
Anyway, one can easily assume it would be somewhere in the Nibenay, which has weird amount of empty land despite it being supposed to be the more populated part of Cyrodiil. Like between Leyawiin and Cheydinhall there's a whole lot of barely anything it could fit into that is not near water, and would work well to actually give imperials and the Nibenese some distinction.

chessalavakia_ESO

I think you run into several issues trying to separate Nibenese and Colovian much beyond relatively token efforts.

First, you have the issue of needing separate visual assets. You'll notice that ESO has a major tendency to be cheap with visual assets which makes it kind of hard to sell having two + separate visual styles for groups that don't actually have much content.

Second, the story generally speaking wants the Imperials to either be the total baddies or get along with everyone. My impression is that while that might fit the Nibenese, that doesn't really fit the Colovians as well so the more you separate things the more awkward it gets.

Third, generic fantasy is a thing for a reason: People like it.

rootkitronin

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Third, generic fantasy is a thing for a reason: People like it.

People like it in the same way they like hot dogs, both are cheap and easy to produce, and they sell - doesn't make them bad, just rather bland and generic when compared to more interesting alternatives.

Elder Scrolls as a franchise has really tried to push past that generic fantasy rut - though they definitely weren't always as unique as they are now. But in recent iterations, there seems to have been a push back into that generic fantasy safety zone.

Is that a bad thing? I dunno, but as a long time Elder Scrolls fan, I keep coming back to the series because the world building is so unique, if that stops being the case, then I don't really see much else keeping me here.

If people would rather have their fantasy world more generic, I would urge them to play something else, they won't be wanting for options.

colossalvoids

I'm not really sure if pushing past generic was actually a conscious decision but a coincidence, when there was a group of passionate individuals in the same room for couple of years during creation of one of the most influential rpg games of all time. Obviously inspirations also were a big factor, it was a successful mix at a time. And audiences appetites grew with each year reading all the info, insider information of what's and how's all could have been, what was cut or forgotten, thousands of hours of podcasts dissecting every little bit of content and lore.

Sadly the more I play ESO with each new content drop the more I see how other franchises took what tes could have been and making it "more right" to my eye.

Anyways my mumbling aside I hope that such posts would be noticed at least and might untie some hands in more creative directions instead of following the same pattern over and over.

Aztrias

I remember seeing this screenshot in a gaming magazine and it influenced me to buy Morrowind


I instantly got hooked on the weirdness of the Elder Scrolls world(I didn't even know about Arena or Daggerfall back then), I also remember how dissapointed I was with Oblivion on release, gone was the weird and mystic world of Morrowind replaced with something rather bland and generic.

Veloth_Redothril

Imagine if Zenimax had used the Nibenese and Colovians (and perhaps a now defunct third faction) as the basis of ESO's central (pvp) conflict instead of the nonsense of the three Alliances.

Would have been a good place to really flesh out those two factions instead of continuing to just give out some token mentions.

RaikaNA

I don't know... my Imperial looks fabulous without any additional armor..

TwiceBornStar

Well, my Imperial looks like a mangy, unshaven Chihuahua dressed in oily rags and sounds like a grumpy old man who hasn't had a decent cup of cappuccino in like five years. (maybe six!) I mean, he's a werewolf, and unfortunately for him, werewolves just aren't meant to look amazing. I suppose this is the only explanation I have as to why he's literally tearing everything to shreds whenever he's going for a stroll at full moon. Grumpy.

Seriously!

Hurbster

Needs more floating hip-flaps and huge shoulders.

Aztrias

Veloth_Redothril wrote: »

Imagine if Zenimax had used the Nibenese and Colovians (and perhaps a now defunct third faction) as the basis of ESO's central (pvp) conflict instead of the nonsense of the three Alliances.

That's actually what I wanted


The three war alliance factions feel kind of artificial to me somehow(maybe with the exeption of the Aldmeri Dominion), like it was made up on the fly without that much after thought only to fit in this games pvp.

Vrienda

Oblivion kinda shut that door. Closest you'll get is Project Cyrodiil for Morrowind if and when that's ever finished.

But I do agree, Imperials were far more interesting pre-oblivion. Kinda hope we get a first era game one day where Imperials look like this though. But the mass market likes generic.

Vinterskald

Really enjoying this thread and the visual inspirations people have been citing People have been complaining about the blandness of Cyrodiil compared to what it could have been ever since Oblivion, and rightly so. I think ESO tried a little bit, within the frame of what they could do having to build it off of TES IV, but... it's still disappointing. Although Blackwood's architecture was visually pleasing in itself, it was still nothing like what I would've hoped a 2021 vision of the region to be. (Although to be fair and as others have pointed out, that goes for pretty much all of Tamriel, with some being worse offenders than others... I'm still sad about Summerset's architecture, as pretty as it was )

Especially with it mostly being generic European medieval fantasy it ends up making all Breton content feel kind of redundant too because... what do you need Bretons for still when everything Imperial is barely distinguishable from them? That wouldn't be a concern if we had all those Byzantine/Slavic/Scythian/Lombard/what have you (or even like... actual Roman beyond what little we have right now) influences for Cyrodiil. And then give us those cultural interactions between Cyrodiil and all the provinces it borders (and the interactions between the Colovian and Nibenese cultures themselves) via actual tangible representations of the fashion, architecture, cuisine, music... so many possibilities!

And ESO had an amazing setting to do that in - the base assumption of having a Cyrodiil that was relatively recently ruled by the Akaviri Potentates and then in very recent history by Reachfolk makes for a potentially extremely rich experience, worldbuilding-wise, so it's especially confusing and disappointing there's just... absolutely none of that. You would really not notice the difference if the Longhouse dynasty had been Colovian beyond some very tiny references in Markarth and Blackwood.

I suppose we can't ever have the vision of Tamriel we'd want unless we make it ourselves, so I'm happy there's plenty of people out there exploring what they think Imperials could be through mods, writing, and art, and maybe that will eventually give Zenimax the courage to inch closer to that as well... and if not, we'll at least still have the incredible creativity of the fanbase to rely on.

Aliyavana

It was a mistake for imperials to lean into the medieval aspect as it makes breton’s niche feel redundant as the western fantasy race. And it looks like others here agree with me.

rootkitronin

Everyone is going to have differing opinions and personal preferences, etc. But the nice thing with the Elder Scrolls as a series is that there's really nothing stopping them from doing different variations/takes on all the races with each new game.

Whenever Elder Scrolls 6 releases, I'm not expecting the designs to look like Skyrim 2 - at least I hope that's not the case - I would expect them to try new things, take different races or groups in slightly different directions, etc.

Which is kinda what they've done with the visual design, as well as with the lore, with each iteration of the series.

Ragnarok0130

LanteanPegasus wrote: »

I have to confess that I'm actually glad we have more of the "tame" Roman design, and less "fighting in plated dresses and layers of skirts" as shown in the first post... But tastes differ, of course.
I do prefer Roman references over Asian ones for the Empire, because ever since I started with Morrowind that's what it mostly reminded me of.

I agree on all points. As a long time Imperial enjoyer from the TES games I really like the aestetic in ESO for Imperials. The Order of the hour motif is one of my favorites but I sincerely like all of the Imperial motifs and architecture in ESO.