- Dołączono
- 16 Gru 2022
I fucking despised ESO. As an MMO, it was awful. I could make a massive list of all the things I hated, both as a game and as a work in the TES series, but the post would be as long as an OP.
The biggest legacy ESO has for me is that it damaged the TES lore probably beyond repair. They made so many retcons or dumb additions it's staggering, but, unlike Bethesda, they touched every part of worldbuilding rather than just one province. Some of these choices fundamentally undermine interesting lore and damages the internal logic of the world.
Now you could say that Bethesda can just ignore the ESO lore and problem solved, but it isn't. TES has two lores running in parallel. The hard lore (the actual lore written and spoken in-game) and the soft lore (what people/communities think the lore says, fan theories, extra notes and out-of-game writings made by the developers). The soft lore has many times impacted the hard lore, and ESO has absolutely infected the soft lore to the point where it is impossible to excise. Most people who are interested in the lore have picked up ESO slop without even realising it, even if they want to avoid it. If you want to see for yourself, go to UESP and search a race, province or well-known character; read it, and after you are done, look at how much is sourced from ESO. In a lot of cases it's over 80%.
The biggest legacy ESO has for me is that it damaged the TES lore probably beyond repair. They made so many retcons or dumb additions it's staggering, but, unlike Bethesda, they touched every part of worldbuilding rather than just one province. Some of these choices fundamentally undermine interesting lore and damages the internal logic of the world.
Let's take the Altmer as an example: Most Altmer are snobby pricks, but the lore gave a good explanation as to why they have this attitude. They have a lot of cultural, historical and religious reasons for this, but there was another really important and arguably the biggest aspect: their lifespan. We never got a solid number in the old lore, but the closest was Barenziah saying that elves have a thousand-year lifespan, and other lore also implies a very long lifespan. Using this, let's take an example of a gifted painter in Altmeri society. This painter starts to paint when he is a young man; his tutor has been painting for hundreds of years. When he goes to look at other works of art, they have been painted by masters who have painted for hundreds of years maybe even a thousand years. When he goes to sketch a building as a reference, it, likewise, has been made by builders and architects who have gone through a similar process. By the time our Altmer painter is 300 years old (comparative to a 24-year-old in terms of lifespan), he is still a learner in his culture; he has a long way to go to become a master. If this Altmer were to be shown a painting by a gifted human "master" who was 60, it would look like a deviant art post by a 16-year-old. It would be laughable. This applies to everything when comparing Man to the Altmer. Would you not be a smug prick and think you are better than a culture if the absolute unironic artistic zenith of that culture was Tails Gets Trolled?
ESO says nope, they mostly live to 200, maybe 300 if they are lucky, ruining this really interesting piece of lore that shows how a long elven lifespan would have a unique effect on a society.
That's just one of the uncountable changes made.
TL;DR old lore: Altmer are smug pricks because their long life span makes the races of Man look like retarded toddlers in comparison. ESO said, 'Fuck that', and made them have double the lifespan of Men.
ESO says nope, they mostly live to 200, maybe 300 if they are lucky, ruining this really interesting piece of lore that shows how a long elven lifespan would have a unique effect on a society.
That's just one of the uncountable changes made.
TL;DR old lore: Altmer are smug pricks because their long life span makes the races of Man look like retarded toddlers in comparison. ESO said, 'Fuck that', and made them have double the lifespan of Men.
Now you could say that Bethesda can just ignore the ESO lore and problem solved, but it isn't. TES has two lores running in parallel. The hard lore (the actual lore written and spoken in-game) and the soft lore (what people/communities think the lore says, fan theories, extra notes and out-of-game writings made by the developers). The soft lore has many times impacted the hard lore, and ESO has absolutely infected the soft lore to the point where it is impossible to excise. Most people who are interested in the lore have picked up ESO slop without even realising it, even if they want to avoid it. If you want to see for yourself, go to UESP and search a race, province or well-known character; read it, and after you are done, look at how much is sourced from ESO. In a lot of cases it's over 80%.
Fitting that a soulless company would kick out a guy who's name is soul and put his soul into their Elder Scrolls (post-Daggerfall) soundtracks.
