Ancestral Orc and Ancestral Altmer need name changes

PizzaCat82 · April 2020

Way too close to Ancient Elf and Ancient Orc. I know the words are different its possible to confuse based on the first couple of letters. and we don't kneed more confusing names in this game. I'd recommend changing to Lineal Orc and Lineal Altmer motifs.

virtus753 · April 2020

I can see Ancient and Ancestral being too close for comfort spelling-wise, especially for those new to the game or reading very quickly.

I’m not sure Lineal gets at sufficiently the same meaning, though. It’s based on the concept of a line, so in some cases it has nothing to do with ancestry, past culture, or age (like lineal championship titles), while in ancestry terms it specifies a direct line of familial descent. In this case I believe Ancestral is meant to connote earlier culture in general rather than specific bloodlines.

Elder, perhaps? It fits the epic fantasy register of TES (cf. Elder Dragon). It also has precedent in Elder Argonian, although it makes me wonder if they plan to introduce an “Ancestral Argonian” at some point as well...

Dusk_Coven · April 2020

Aside from spelling, could we get an idea of who the Ancients are and who the Ancestrals are and what the difference is in the Lore? @ZOS_LeamonTuttle
Once that is established, then we can proceed with better adjectives that more clearly highlight the distinction.
As it is, without knowing the key distinction, "Ancient" and "Ancestral" could feel synonymous to players as "from a long time ago".

Banana · April 2020

Who's got pictures

BigBadVolk · April 2020

inb4 ancestral ancient elf and dwemer style

tuxon · April 2020

First World Problem

rexagamemnon · April 2020

so they make ancestral Nord, High Elf and Orc motifs, let's hope they make "ancestral" motifs for all the races, because not everyones favorite race falls into the categories. mine is Imperial, another person might be dark elf or Breton.