LogFAQs > #944952009

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The vast majority of gamers (especially more casual ones) would probably kind of hate Black Marsh. It certainly wouldn't appeal to the more casual player, which is what the success of Skyrim was mostly built on. Most polls I've seen rank Argonians lower than anything other than Orcs, and the fact that their entire region is mostly swampy jungle and Mesoamerican ruins really doesn't scratch the same generic fantasy itch for Western audiences that places like Skyrim or High Rock do.

Elsweyr has the advantage of being about cat-people, so the Internet won't be able to stop squeeing over it, but it would also be like 90% desert and maybe 10% rainforesty jungle, which might turn off the sort of people who spent most of their time ranting about how pretty they though Skyrim was.

Swamps and ruins sound like an incredible setting. Although the Argonians themselves are less popular, there would likely be a great amount of scenery porn to make up for that. And part of the problem with Argonians is that their designs have frequently been bad. More variation and a cooler look would certainly help there.

As for the Khajiit themselves, I imagine they'd be more polarizing than the setting. Personally, I'm a fan of cat people -- and most "beastmen" races (generally when given the option with character creation, I opt for the least-human race for the novelty unless I hate their design or there's a game mechanic I dislike) -- but I can see any predominant inhuman race creating a mixed reception.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

ESO is actually a pretty good gauge of what various regions will probably turn out like if they got full versions.

Someday I'll have to play ESO, but I really don't like getting into MMOs because there's generally a massive learning curve and so much of the gameplay revolves around other players (which is fine with just PvP, but things like group PvM require logistics that make it feel like work rather than fun)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Nostalgia doesn't really mean "that thing I liked as a kid", even if most people online use it that way as a shorthand for "childhood nostalgia". Nostalgia is really just sentimentality for the past (often somewhat melancholic), which means if you can contrast the present to a past "good old days" or "golden age", you can easily have nostalgia for it. Even if it wasn't all THAT long ago.

Nostalgia, retro, are all buzzwords that seem heavily abused these days (and are instantly evocative of clickbait "Remember this? You'll feel so old!" articles). It's also annoying because while these words are being misused, there are words that accurately describe the phenomena that aren't being used. In other cases -- like simply preferring things a game maker was doing during a certain period -- really don't need special words at all.

And just because some periods are better than others doesn't really make it a nostalgia thing. It seems rather natural that objectively there will be good times and bad. When it comes to nostalgia, I tend to think of it in the narrow traditional definition where it's something more personal.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Hell, I have nostalgia for the times when this site wasn't mostly s***, and that was only about a dozen years ago.

This site was always shit, it's just different shit now.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Which I was contrasting to Bethesda Elder Scrolls, which I've almost never given much of a f*** about. I liked Oblivions, Skyrim, and ESO, but I never loved them (and I loathed Morrowind, so I started out with a very low opinion of the developer anyway). For as much as I loved Fallout: New Vegas, I was mostly meh about Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.

Morrowind intrigued me from the first commercials I saw, but unfortunately -- because it was on the XBox and PC -- I didn't play it until long after Oblivion so it felt outdated.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Basically, Bethesda's f***-ups really haven't disillusioned be, because I was never "illusioned" in the first place. I wasn't blinded by love or fond memories or - I've always turned a critical eye to almost everything Bethesda has released, and have been more than willing to call bulls*** on their litany of issues (they're basically the reason I coined the phrase "If your game needs multiple fan mods to be good, then it's a s*** game in the first place").

But the people who HAVE been blinded by their love, who have always made excuses or tried to justify or forgive Bethesda screwing up, are slowly becoming more bitter and disillusioned by those screw ups. Negativity is rising, and that negativity may scour games like Starfield and ESVI in ways it wouldn't have if they came out 10 years ago.

As for me, I just haven't seen much merit to the complaints. While Bethesda games have their issues, it's understandable given the absurd amount of things they try to do and I'd rather have a franchise overreach while having some glitches then produce an unambitious, flawless, boring product. And my biggest complaint about most games in general is a lack of content. LOZ TP and BOTW both drove me nuts with how little shit there was. BOTW had a good-sized map with a lot to explore, but it was pretty much fucking empty. Skyrim has something every 20 feet despite being huge.


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