I'd be really curious to know what the brief was for Alinor and Vampire! It's like they wanted to make a Vampire style, which I imagine had to be Gothic because Gothic and vampires are inexorably linked in popular culture, but they already played that card with Alinor which I suspect was 'Make it Gothic, but white - bonus points for spires'...and re. the central point of your post - I agree that Vampiric and Alinor are quite similar.
I think it's just fairly inevitable, though, that they are going for a similar kind of look and feel.
As it is all set around the same time and both Altmer and Vampires are supposed to be somewhat upscale and also, spiky in character.
Lol, Zypheran! Yes, you're sadly right, I also saw that fern... There was a door (Ancient Nord Gate) datamined from the Patch, but since it's nowhere to be seen on the PTS, it might be added in the new Crown Crates as they started adding furnishings to the Crates (which is another topic in itself...).For example, this DLC the first new item I saw when I went into the purchase tab to see what's new, was a fern..... another fern!! I mean really, who is out there saying we have a shortage of ferns?!
Look at the similarity between Alinor and vampire and you're forced to ask, did we really need another polished, dark wooden desk or wardrobe?? - questionable asset choices at best.
Then you have a list the length of 10 forum pages of stuff that people really want and only a small percentage of these are getting added at a glacial pace.
I just can't accept that good choices are being made on what assets become furniture when i see a new mildly retextured fern being added rather than that blue and ivory floor tile from solitude houses (That's just an example obviously).
We have a hundred rocks and pebbles, more chairs than Ikea, but only one door!!
Yes, I didn't include the lamps because those are fitting for a 'vampire style' - as you also said, mainly due to their spikes which resemble fangs. But while the the Vampire lamps suit the Vampire house, both have very little in common with the wood Vampire furniture, which is why I posted about those.Returning to the OP, I like the new vampire style. The team behind it used the Greymoor logo (those fangs) in the theme of the furniture. Even the lamp posts have those fangs. It is not Alinor, because it is lighter. You can tell they are different styles. I will test to mix these two and see how they look, but from what I have seen they are not that similar. In my opinion some of the flowery Elsweyr furniture works better with Alinor than the vampire.
It is obvious they reuse 3D models for saving time, but I disagree the new furniture styles do not work with their theme. The Solitude furniture works best with the rustic houses around western Skyrim (and not as much with the rich marble interiors), and the vampiric stuff will look great in the Bastion. I do think the team considers color alot, because the vampiric furniture looks best with the new amber lights from the vampire theme. The Solitude theme is seamless in shops or inns.
Nice pictures, I'm glad you like the new house! Though I'm not sure the images support the Vampire furnishing art direction, when the ones in your picture look pretty close to Alinor. Almost all the furniture in your images have a direct Alinor counterpart that looks very similar, or an Alinor complement that fits in pretty well.bluebird I tested the new (impressive) Vampire Bastion on the PTS. From what I have seen, the devs did an amazing job matching the furnishings with the new architecture, and here are a couple of pictures:
The furniture seamlessly fits with the theme, I disagree that Alinor would work here better. The decoration on the furniture matches with the one on the walls, and also the lighting makes the two fit perfectly. Even the bed looks great!
So what did Vampire furniture design bring to the table (pun intended ) compared to Alinor?
Yes, Alinor and Vampire are not identical - yes there are differences in the colour of the wood that people who've played housing for years will pick up on, differences in some shapes, and a few of the furniture are entirely unique - like the marble or green fabric Alinor pieces, or the curved Vampire dresser. But I purposefully avoided those since I'm looking at the overlaps between Alinor and Vampire, not the outliers, especially when those unique pieces stand apart from their own styles as well. And overall, Alinor and Vampire are undeniably similar design-wise.Well, Vampiric is slightly softer; despite the spikes, which are sharper and narrower. Alinor is chunkier, squarer, darker - and not in a rich, glossy, Japanoiserie, black lacquer kind of way, but in a dullish, dark brown kind of way.
I didn't come up with that myself, I don't consider Alinor to be particularly vampire-like in itself. But spikes = vampires because that's what the game suggests. The Vampire architecture they came up with is a mild variation on Gothic, same as Alinor architecture. It can't be the knotwork motif that makes Vamoire 'vampiric' (we have knotwork on Breton, Nord and Solitude furniture and architecture too), so its distinguishing Vampire features are the spikes and grotesque gargoyles and fanged faces, and even more metalwork spikes. I don't think the Vampire architecture or lamps moved far away at all from Vampire stereotypes for example, but we can see a mostly cohesive 'Vampire' vision there.I am not sure how spikes = vampires, it is because they have fangs? Well, so do orcs
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From my point of view, I see a good thing that the developers moved away a bit from the much overused stereotypes we tend to see everywhere regarding vampires
The reason Alinor reminds you of church furniture, is because it is Gothic (most of which would be preserved in churches or private townhouses from the era). But if Alinor buildings look like a Gothic church, then Vampire buildings are a Gothic crypt. There is nothing remotely homely about it, it shares design features with Alinor, except much more metallic, more grotesque, and darker.You know what most of the Alinor furniture reminds me of? Austere, church furniture.
They gave us a gigantic cathedral and then the matching furniture, including pews(!), to fill it.
This time, they have given us a huge mansion, with a mid-brown interior and intricate motifs on the walls and windows and again, the matching furniture to fill it.
Should we be given enormous buildings, with austere furniture, or more homely* stuff?
I don't mind us discussing the minutiae of furniture since I love housing, but most of this supports my post. Statements like 'Alinor looks like a playground for the Impaler' especially - yeees, that's the point, that's the issue with Vampire/AlinorIn my opinion, Alinor is more austere than the new vampiric theme, which seems to me more lavish. Also the round edges are more pleasant to the eye than the spikes pointing upwards on the Alinor furniture. Sometimes I look at the Alinor beds like a playground for the Impaler Now, after reading Tigerseye description, I see the furniture perfectly fitting for the Summerset elves, who are very stern, conservative and almost religious their customs.
Alinor architecture is not very Elven, which was a common complaint when it was released; there was a really long thread about it. Many people said that Alinor is what Breton should have looked like. Because instead of showing us Summerset as the cradle of the High Elves where Auridon and High Elf styles come from, they instead moved away from the elviness of those. They took the magical and vague lore description of Summerset and made it too human and Disneyland-esque. LotR-Hobbit elves and even Elder Scrolls elves are traditionally far more organic. As we can see with Auridon and Rivendell.I think the Alinor architecture is not so much gothic (even though it clearly draws from the neogothic revival), but more elven, inspired from the Lord of the Rings / Hobbit movies. The architecture is sophisticated and positive (while the interiors are a bit in contrast with the flowery exterior). It is very high fantasy, and probably it has the most unique elements (game assets) than any other style. The interior of the Shimmerine cathedral or Psijic Villa does not ring vampire to me at all. The Bastion architecture is odd, exactly like something from the underworld of Blackreach should be, it does not say vampire right away to me, which is good, vampires should be elusive, not wearing neon signs about their identity. I think the Bastion is a fantastic design achievement, although I am not into vampires at all.
So you sort of support my point. If you think Alinor furniture is more austere, and Vampire furniture is more homely...
...then you're basically saying that Alinor furniture would fit Vampire buildings more, and Vampire furniture would fit a more homely Alinor townhouse. Because there is nothing homely about a gargoyle-filled Gothic crypt.
So tl;dr: Vampire architecture has a look they were going for (grotesque spiky Gothic halls with metal), and the Vampire lamps fit that - but the Vampire furniture do not fit in with that any more than spiky Gothic Alinor which are similar to many Vampire furniture, or grotesque metal Daedric which would fit the house and lamps more. And the few unique Vampire furniture that really stand out with their sculpted columns and smooth undecorated wood do not match the rest of the Vampire furniture nor the Vampire buildings.
I don't mind us discussing the minutiae of furniture since I love housing, but most of this supports my post. Statements like 'Alinor looks like a playground for the Impaler' especially - yeees, that's the point, that's the issue with Vampire/Alinor
That's part of the issue. When designing art with a clean slate, should 'Vampiric' be more sleek and refined than Summerset High Elf? Would Vampires use a warm medium brown colour or a darker one? Should Vampires who live in a crypt with gargoyles, spiky metal fences and snarling vampire heads that are very over-the-top have more refined and versatile furniture than Summerset?Although I don't find it homely, as such, I do find the Vampiric furniture slightly more sleek, refined and versatile looking. But, homely? No, not really. The spikes kind of put an end to that, lol.
Why is a Summerset High Elf style more austere than Vampire furniture that belong in a dark gargoyled spiked stone crypt? Was this an intented design direction? That's the point of my post - not the minor details which do set Alinor and Vampire apart, but the general art design and vision. Are furniture (and architecture) designed with the currently existing ones in mind? Are they based on keywords? Real life references? What, how, why?The colour is slightly off, the texture is slightly off and it's too chunky and austere. It looks carved from solid wood, which has then been stained and polished vs having been veneered in a rich luxury wood, with finely turned finials (like the Vampiric).
Whereas, the colour and details of the Vampiric blend in perfectly with the wall and window decoration of the crypt
Lol! Since you asked, vampires clearly don't mind the stake motifs, since they glued a ton of square metal spikes on every possible surface in their Bastion Sanguinaris. And while Vampire Hunter opinions may vary, most wooden stakes are cylindrical with a narrow point (for ease of handling and smoother penetration), not straight with square cross-sections. So if anything, the current 'Vampire' furniture spikes should be far more anti-Vampire than the Alinor ones.But, surely, Vampires would hate anything that looked like a wooden stake? They wouldn't be likely to invoke one of the few things that could kill them, in their furnishing design, would they?
So, assuming they wouldn't want the Alinor spikes, as they are square in cross section, exactly like a wooden stake they could be impaled by, that would surely be another argument for the finely turned finials of the Vampiric, wouldn't it?
Ah, I must have misunderstood you then about that, sorry! Thought you were referring to Vampire specifically, not speaking in general. And yes, I agree that we could use more comfy homely furniture (the lack of padded armchairs and sofas were a missed opportunity from this aspect too). I also wouldn't have minded if they took Vampire into the sculpted column-curved drawers direction for example that we see on the desk and dresser alone, that would have been a unique style at least.No, sorry, I was trying to ask if we should be given more homely furnishings and houses, in general, as opposed to these huge cathedrals and crypts (with matching furniture)?
I simply wanted to find out more in how new architectures and furniture are developed - does the art team get a brief from higher ups or do they have free rein, do they come up with a design based on real life examples, or do they consider already existing ingame assets? What determines the colour palette? How much influence does the housing team have on asset design? Etc.
I enjoy discussing furniture and architectural styles btw, I just don't want the original theme of the thread to get lost under debates about finials and buttresses. Thogh ZOS devs are probably unlikely to see the questions and even more unlikely to have the time and/or inclination to answer them.
Yes of course, I said several times that I don't consider them identical, so I do see some difference, but they have significant overlaps. So these 'key' differences are not clear-cut nor distinct, as my previous images showed.One last comment regarding your very detailed posts is that.. surely you see the key difference between the two furnishing styles
Wait, Alinor is 'lush and verdant and sophisticated now'? It was was 'austere' a few posts ago with Vampire considered more 'lavish' But yes jokes aside I do agree many of the Alinor pieces are verdant.I mean, Alinor has a slight rural theme, with leaves moftifs, it has those broken arches that match the same pattern in the architecture, and same goes for the spikes which match the spikes on their architecture and spiked towers. On the other hand, the "vampiric" theme, does not have anything in common with vegetation, and its architecture does not have the same overlapping gothic arches pattern. Furthermore, the vampiric architecture is more like a dungeon, since it is in Blackreach, and it is carved out of cave rock.
The Alinor theme is very much like all Summerset, a very lush, verdant and sophisticated place, so its furniture and architecture reflects on that. Summerset elves are like that. They look down at strangers and see their insular culture superiour in every way. However, the vampires do not the same similarities like a people. The only thing they have in common is their curse, other than that you can have a vampire that is a Breton noble, one that is a Khajiit peddler or another which is an Orc pirate. I tend to see the orc breaking the vampiric furniture pretty fast. So, yes, the knotwork motif does not make the theme vampire, it just creates a theme which will fit the Bastion, but most likely will not fit everyone's concept of what a Tamrielic vampire is, and I am sure everyone will have their own stereotypes.
Yeah, I never argued that it's an ugly style, it's actually well done and high-rez too so I don't have issues with the furniture themselves. The same way I don't have an issue with the Solitude wooden benches or Elsweyr houses, I just wonder 'why this, when we already had 6 other Solitude wooden benches' and 'why another mouldy Elsweyr house when we're missing so many other styles' lol? Though I do think the gargoyles and grotesque snarling vampire faces push the Bastion into a cartoony evil theme already, everyone will surely find their own creative niche with the Vamp architecture and furniture too. But that's not what this topic was about... even though 90% of the posts ended up focused on analyzing Vampire style, lol.Some people will go overboard with the evil vampire theme and use the cartoony daedric stuff and the torture gear, others will try to make the best of the new polished furniture style, which is quite beautiful.
Thanks for your comment, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the Vampire style. Although this thread has gone off topic a little, since almost every comment is focusing on analyzing the Vampire style itself, lol. Had I know that would happen, I would have made a separate thread for the Vampire style alone.And do not complain. I personally like that it matches so well the Alinor style, saves one the trouble of matching, being that every new collection comes with so very few items, forcing the housing enthusiast to mix and match rather than go full collections.
My comment wasn't meant as a criticism of your post, it it came across that way. I thanked you for your input, and acknowledged that players will have different personal responses to the styles. I was simply talking about how this topic ran its course several months ago, and as you say didn't really seem to hit the mark when it comes to exploring its original intention.You can't expect the answer to what you wish by opening a topic to which mainly players will answer. My answer is based on a personal thinking I would do if I were them, and I do believe it pretty much covers your topic. I only allowed a touch of personal comparison between items, as I have seen it debated above quite a bit. But as a hobbyist into graphic design ( which is what the devs providing this stuff are) - this seems the easiest way to approach it (first lines of my answer). Now if you want details on how they create their meshes and textures, and more technical stuff - style is definitely of no consequence, and indeed - all this is pretty much ... off topic.
High Elf style is not medieval European. It's clearly a fantasy style. Inspired by Rivendell and the likes, with strong natural themes. It also often features fabrics and pillows, and has dual-tone furniture including inlays with engraved nature patterns.Now coming to vampires - well... vampires are ... no culture really, they are pure fantasy, and their strongest imagery is connected with the 19th century. Now there are these different kinds I already spoke of above - monster/bloody/ugly/gore ( which does go pretty well with the whole daedric concept) - and noble, elegant, arrogant, immortal . How do you fit that in? Obviously the only style around which goes - europe +elegance is high elf.