Lore Friendly Graphics Mode?

Dusk_Coven · January 2020

Suppose you don't like the black-and-pink-glowy Noweyr Pony and think it's an abomination to the TES lore.

What if we have a "Lore Friendly" setting. For example, if you turn it on, the game picks up the (considerably smaller and local-on-your-computer) graphics files.
From your point of view only, everyone only rides Fishystick. No bizarre mounts.
Lore friendly plus performance.

Too weird?

Anumaril · January 2020

Totally agree that many mounts/pets are bizarrely lore-breaking and in no sane person's mind should be considered canon, but sadly this kind of thing will never be implemented.

The first problem would be that people buy cosmetic items (outfit styles, mounts, pets) not just so that their character can look good in the player's eyes, but so that every other player can also see the awesome cosmetic and see how "cool" they look. If a lot (of not most) of players turned off such cosmetics, whether it be for performance reasons or lore reasons, then fewer people would buy those bizarre lore-breaking cosmetics because a majority of the player base would not see them.

Another issue of course would be "who gets to decide what is lore-breaking?", I certainly have my standards but they would likely be considered conservative by most. For example: bear mounts (of any kind) would be eliminated immediately from the game if I had any input in the toggle setting. Bears are simply not ridable creatures, and considering them to be mounts requires a great deal more suspension of disbelief from my part than, say, Senche mounts (which to me make much more sense given the lore of Elsweyr). Indriks would also be booted immediately as they are even more of a wild animal than bears. The closest thing we have to a tamed Intrik in the lore is Ayrenn's Indrik from the Sil-Var-Woad questline in Summerset, but if you played that questline you would know that her Indrik is not very tame at all and certainly not suitable to mount. Quite a few skins would also go, such as "Sunspire Ice-Fire", "Fabrication Sheath", "Dro-M'athra", "Z'maja's Shadow", and "Sanctified Silver", among many others. This is by no means a comprehensive list of things I would add to your proposed toggle setting, but already you can see that it covers a lot of (popular) cosmetics. ZOS' Crown Store revenue would tank should anyone approaching my lore standards have any say in the setting, but revenues would still dip regardless because of the aforementioned dilemma. You can also imagine the uproar from the player base should any of the cosmetics they bought with real money be hidden from the world by some game setting.

colossalvoids · January 2020

Then it will require quite a few ''lore'' presets, as most people have different opinions about what fits and what crosses the border. But the thing is that anything they add becoming lore part that exact second.

TigressCreed · January 2020

As nice as this would originally seem, to make it almost like a non modded Skyrim, it would discourage people from buying fancy stuff from the crown store to show off or to show off their vet trial skins. But yes I did think that it would be nice to make everyone look medieval with regular horses instead of ghost mounts and ice skin...but it is a magical realm so I guess it is possible...or my personal favourite, pretend I had too much skooma and it’s my hallucinations

Dusk_Coven · January 2020

colossalvoids wrote: »

Then it will require quite a few ''lore'' presets, as most people have different opinions about what fits and what crosses the border. But the thing is that anything they add becoming lore part that exact second.

To make the process not-insane, the simplest method would be a blanket replacement. E.g., for mounts, the only allowable ones would be the ones you can buy at the Stablemaster. The implementation could be pretty easy -- 1-time download of a graphics file that's stored local.
Any customizable setting would either require programming an interface or allow players to fool around with graphics files locally stored, and that could be a bigger headache.

So, yeah, it would definitely be a really drastic toggle, even for one aspect of the game.
And for that reason actually it might be feasible because not everyone's going to go for it. So all those people who like their fancy mounts would get to keep it. In fact if you rode a fancy mount yourself you couldn't use it.

But I do agree it'd be a pretty drastic switch to flip, even for just one category of visuals.

SmukkeHeks · January 2020

I’m just waiting for the first character in a g-string...

RaddlemanNumber7 · January 2020

Magic is magic. How is magic not Lore friendly.

Ajaxandriel · January 2020

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Too weird?

Weird enough.

Anumaril wrote: »

Totally agree that many mounts/pets are bizarrely lore-breaking and in no sane person's mind should be considered cannon, but sadly this kind of thing will never be implemented.

So I'm insane? Are you insulting me?

Look, in this game the devs put some effort in the flavor text to give us some lore at least!

Well, there are some mounts that are...rightly disturbing indeed (I'm thinking about the Hallowjack headless thing) but most seem legit.

Regular "exotic mounts" such as Camels, Guar, Senche, Bears, Wolves, even Indriks, are part of the fantasy (...as I expect it in ESO). They just have to fit the character and his backstory to be used properly. Camels for redguards, guars for dunmer and argonians, ans so on.
OK, maybe the panda-pattern bear was a terrible idea but that's an exception. Some other mounts are debatable, like atronach (that could fit for a powerful wizard or warlock).

Almost all the pets are immersive so should be regarded as canon too.

In the end, all the raid skins are disturbing. Moreover they are used by out-of-context PVE-boyz who have no idea of immersion and lore-friendliness - and who are the ones who do raids...

Dro-M'athra or Z'Maja Shadow could be awesome if used properly ...like ...everything in this game. But let's face it, it will never happen.

So instead of bubbling and phasing yourself out artificially by a "toggle"...

WHY WOULDN'T WE GET ROLEPLAY AND LANGUAGES SERVER-SHARDS ?
At last. PRETTY PLEASE. We're in 2020 ZoS... ...Waiting for this since March 2014...