R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
I'm of the opinion that GTA has better characters than skyrim. they're certainly more memorable and likable.
CerberusGate
I should save my game in a whole new slot
Especially in 4 and San Andreas.
Maybe, but they are usually not the deepest characters - however my experience only goes as far like GTA Vice City, characters in GTA are very often homages to characters from movies, usually the gangster/mob genre.
But who ever said they have to be incredibly deep? The illusion of debth can be more than enough, if it's well done. And I guess no one ever thought that GTA has to be on the level of planescape when it comes to NPCs.
R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
tommy vercetti is one of my favorite video game characters of all time. up there with morte, the nameless one, agent 47, and several new vegas charactes.
Why, are you writing a piece of TES fanfiction about Ulfric? I'm sure you'll be able to find some solutions for your questions, then. And my vote goes for: 1) Greybeards exchange letters with jarls' courts, and interpret their dreams as Kyne's visions 2) blackmail and slander opportunity 3) ward spells 4) it's a really silly question, don't you think so?
I don't think it is silly at all. It is also not a fanfiction, it is the backstory of Ulfric told ingame.
1) I don't remember anything in the game saying the Greybeards communicate with anyone, I think Ulfric even says something about the Greybeards not talking or communicating with anyone for many years (when they summon the Dragonborn with a shout that shakens the ground and can be heard for miles) and that it is a rare honor to be summoned and be in the presence of the Greybeards.
2)Blackmail and slander? What blackmail could they get that they couldn't by having him in prison and being tortured? Also the documents from the Thalmor ingame do not mention anything about slander and blackmail when they say that they lied to him and made him believe he was responsible for the Imperial City to fall. Another thing is that Ulfric does not hide he blames himself for it, so how could the Thalmor blackmail him when he is so open about it?
3)There are no wards against shouts, shouts do not work as the rest of the magic in TES, there is no way of warding against them. All one needs is to be able to talk, even only one Greybeard can talk properly, if any other Greybeard tried to talk they would blast everything around them ( or something similar as we are told by one of the Greybeards), so if there was any way to ward against that i bet the Greybeards would have some wards in some areas of their own monastery so they could talk without the danger of destroying the mountain or something.
4) Why is it silly? Because you can't come up with an answer for it? So Ulfric is all "The Old High King was a weak pawn of the Empire which is also a weak and crumbling Empire now that lost the war and had to sign the white-gold concordant, they can't protect their own people. Skyrim needs a strong and real High king, a true Nord. Skyrim needs me." But then he isn't strong at all, for example, he thinks it was him the cause for the Imperial City to fall (which was pretty much what won the war for the Thalmor) in Nord customs it is considered a traitorous act to divulge information like that so by Nord customs he is a traitor, he was also captured twice while his companions gave their lives in battle for the Empire (so he was weak and got captured twice and didn't even had an honorable death by combat), he challenges the old High King knowing full well he could use the shout to disarm the opponent while the opponent couldn0t do anything to stop that (wouldn't call that a fair fight like the challenge was supposed to be), he broke the most sacred rule of the Greybeards teachings (which was using the shouts to fight instead of just worship), he launched Skyrim into a civil war dividing the people and weakening Skyrim's and the Empire military might (and the Thalmor documents show that they do not want a winner of this civil war, they want it to continue indefinitely) so he played right into the Thalmor hands.
Everything he does is incompetent, puts Skyrim in more risk and furthers the Thalmor's agenda, he is weak, keeps being captured even though he possess the power of shouts, he divided Skyrim, weakened it, forced the Thalmor to put pressure on the Empire by forcing it to allow the worship of Talos or their soldiers wouldn't be allowed inside Markarth, he couldn't even defeat the High King which he accused of being weak without using his shout on what was supposed to be a fair duel, lets the Argonians being mistreated in his own cities and don't even allow Khajiits to enter his cities (but for some reason if the player character is a Khajjit he can enter any city)...
Let's be honest he is a terrible leader, and only has any support because he promises to free Skyrim from the tyranny of the Empire and the Thalmor, and even then half of Skyrim is against him and many don't even think they are being oppressed much at all.
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Prone Squanderer
A bit of a Sillius Soddus.
I'm actually currently playing Skyrim again from time to time (started a new character with the Special Edition. Hey, it was free), and I gotta say, that whole stuff about the "Way of the Voice" and the Thu'um is just so laughably terrible. It just reeks of pseudo-epicness and being written by and for five year olds. "Like, dragons always have these cool low voices in the movies, like, woah. How about, like, the player can do that?" -"That would be, like, totally epic, Todd!"
Seriously. It's another variant of magic, and they shoehorned in that whole "like, dragon's voices and language is totally rad dude and, like, awesome power!". Those fucking etchings up to High Hrothgar, so cringey. You can tell it was made just for that FUSRODAH moment in the trailer. So bad.
Remember when Dragon Language was just another skill in Daggerfall? And killing young dragons was no big deal?
Seriously. It's another variant of magic, and they shoehorned in that whole "like, dragon's voices and language is totally rad dude and, like, awesome power!". Those fucking etchings up to High Hrothgar, so cringey. You can tell it was made just for that FUSRODAH moment in the trailer. So bad.
Remember when Dragon Language was just another skill in Daggerfall? And killing young dragons was no big deal?
It's silly, because around twenty years passed between the events you attempt to match and compare.
Hey, I'm not an ideal loremaster, you are not bound by my choices for the answers to questions 1-3.
ad 1. so go with only visionary dreams from Kyne, then
ad 2. you can dig in 'thalmor dossier on ulfric' in-game doc, but my answer comes from tactics of soviet era totalitarian systems used against opposition dissidents, and how the secret files, no matter fake or real, are used as political weapon in some post-communist countries to this day.
ad 3. wards don't protect from shouts, you say? maybe the Thalmor interrogators taught Ulfric a sign language, or had him answer all questions in writing.
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Black Angel
Grand Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus
What do you even mean by that? What's so silly about comparing stuff that have 20 years gap between them? Relevancy?
Are you trying to say Ulfric's legitimacy of claim wouldn't be affected by what happened in the past and his track record?
But is there anywhere in game mentioned that Kyne helped or envisioned Ulfric in becoming an apprentice of the Greybeards, or any precedents of something like that happening in the past? (I have to admit I can't remember)
Skyrim =/= Soviet Union. And still they can't use those files for pretty much anything since all that file says is that they lied to him (which only use would be to prove they lied to him and thus make their plan of lying in the first place have available proof, which is actually the opposite of being useful, it only exists to show they lied for no good reason), and that is another stupid thing about the game, we can't even tell him or show him that file so he can learn the truth and finally lift this heavy and torturous guilt he has had for all those years.
Very well, so I will assume he could communicate with them (although i find it hard someone that needs to be tortured for years to break to the point of "spilling the beans" would be in any shape to use sign language of write any documents detailing essential information capable of bringing the Imperial City down), but that doesn't explain why they tortured him so much, because he had no information that was useful for them, because they had already conquered the Imperial City, why did they kept torturing him to get information about the Imperial City when they already owned it?
I just remember something that is also very bad for Ulfric, he was a Thalmor spy once he got free, he worked with the Thalmor and apparently was very useful for them, so not only was he a traitor because he leaked information, he was also a traitor because he was a Thalmor spy/agent for a while this is a quote from the file in question:
"After the war, contact was established and he has proven his worth as an asset."
The original question was
"Why does Ulfric think the Empire is weak and he is strong when he believes that the Imperial City only fell because it was his own weakness that leaked the information that the Thalmor needed to conquer it? By that logic he was the weak one and it was because of him that the Empire lost it's capital and lost the war."
It fell 20+ years ago, Ulfric sees himself improved, while he considers Empire has not or not enough.
I'd pick Kyne/Kynareth because Arngeir says the Voice is the gift of Kynareth, so whom else would he most likely attribute whatever he dreams and follow on that idea?
For me the best part of skyrim was the the wood cutting and the mining. It was cool that you could earn gold by doing actual jobs I liked that about the game alot. Infact I alot about skyrim expect the main quests and some other quests in general.
I think its a bethesda trend to make really terriable main story. Both skyrim and fo4 main story are terriable and I have not finished both main story. (I literally complete most games I play I hate leaving games unfinished )
I think its a bethesda trend to make really terriable main story. Both skyrim and fo4 main story are terriable and I have not finished both main story. (I literally complete most games I play I hate leaving games unfinished )
The only good thing that came out of Skyrim was Paarthurnax, he was what Alduin should have been in my opinion. Pretty sad. Would have been great if most if not all of the Dragons, at least the important ones, actually gave the player this kind of experience. Not only would it have made a 'believable' race, but it would have actually been a real moral dilema for the player, do you go with your typical 'Hero kills big bad Dragons!' path, or do you actually help a new race to get a foot into the world? But making EVERYONE in Skyrim really hating you. Like if there was something like reputation, and you had chances to spare the life of Dragons, but if NPCs watched you doing it, even your companions, your reputation would drop, up to a point where some factions would outright attack you.
*le Sigh* Another thing that Morrowind did actually better than Skyrim. Remember what happend when you started to assume the role of the Nerrevarine? Yeah, how half of the groups in Skyrim hated you, and the Temple would simply attack you at some point as a herretic. Ah Bethesda, what kind of schlock do they release now? ... How the mighty have fallen ...
*le Sigh* Another thing that Morrowind did actually better than Skyrim. Remember what happend when you started to assume the role of the Nerrevarine? Yeah, how half of the groups in Skyrim hated you, and the Temple would simply attack you at some point as a herretic. Ah Bethesda, what kind of schlock do they release now? ... How the mighty have fallen ...
I agree, this is a flaw. Especially that it's not even clear how he'd react to it.
But what can we expect from a game that has a mere 47k lines of text, while Ps:T has more like 74k (supposedly). Although I won't be much wrong to guess that each line in Creation Kit took more than twice as much effort as those authored directly in the source code, or whatever other contemporary technologies were used.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Ulfric was an teenager who walked the steps up to their mountain like that dude who brings food to them. The Greybeards used to take in people all the time because it's a religious monastic order which Ulfric wanted to join. They just haven't since the Great War.
They were intending to blackmail him into being their agent.
We see a simple gag is used to keep Ulfric prisoner in the beginning of the game. Ulfric only knows how to knock people over and disarm them with his shouts. He didn't stay very long with the Greybeards. Assuming he's literate, he could also write down anything they wanted him to say. Nords aren't stupid after all.
The Empire ALSO submitted to Thalmor pressure.
Also, props to Bethesda but the Thume and Voice was in the lore way before Skyrim.
---
FYI, my favorite games based on writing are:
1. Planescape: Torment
2. Morrowind
3. Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines
4. Knights of the Old Republic 2
5. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
6. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
7. Red Dead Redemption
8. Grand Theft Auto IV (if you don't play Nico as a psychopath)
9. The Walking Dead (first one only)
10. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
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Prone Squanderer
A bit of a Sillius Soddus.
I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet, but I like the soundtrack to Skyrim, well some of it anyway.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
If it's any help, I do concede Skyrim does not have very deep relationships with any of the characters developed. Serana is the only one you can and there's no reason Bethesda couldn't have done that. Likewise, there are many many flaws in the main quest.
So, you've all raised many good points and pointed out very good games.
So, you've all raised many good points and pointed out very good games.
R.Graves
Confirmed Retard
There was a similar problem I had In planescape the abashi that wanted to find a way into the tower... You can't tell him how to get in there even if you know how. Your only two options are
to kill him or tell him that the contractor is unable to fulfill the contract. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if the option to steer the conversation towards telling him wasn't there and accompanied with only the option to say "ah fuck it I was sent to kill you anyway" but unfortunately that iS the case.
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CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
I hate Jim Sterling unreasonably but this is a relevant video.