Skyrim Lore Is Weider Than You Think + on Gods and Monsters on Nebula https://nebula.tv/curiousarchive/gods-and-monsters?ref=hellofutureme

Hi everyone, I’m the editor! This was my first time editing a green screen video and it was a lot of fun! Plus I got to use all my favourite tracks from the elder scrolls games! Hope you all enjoy it! ❤️

there's two things i love about elderscrolls lore: how weird it is, and how much more weird you can make it sound by only giving a quick summary of the lore. for example: Talos is what happens when a scam artist, a racist ghost, and a mage too clever for his own good try to find a replacement battery for the mountain sized mecha because the polycule that achieved godhood through cheatcodes didn't say the batteries weren't included when they gave it to them. So when they try to turn on the giant mecha (that is so powerful, turning it on breaks time) the mecha has to double check with the universe if their fake battery mimicking the heart of a dead god with a sliver of his soul would work. The universe shrugs with a 'close enough', though it has to write a software patch to make sure nothing too important breaks this time. This patch turns the scam artist into a god, but also the racist ghost and the mage  because they did such a good job pretending to be just one awesome dude, the universe lost track of which was which. So they all become Talos. All of this makes sense with the lore if you read only like two or three books ingame.

Subnautica uses this same principle despite the landscape being the flat ocean surface. The very first view of 4546B you get purposefully hides two whole islands behind deliberately placed fog. The only landmark you get is the one you've already been introduced to. The wreck of the ship you arrived on.

I just noticed the music feels very Skyrim, but when you talk about Cyberpunk, it shifts to include elements from its music! Neato.

He’s right about how the hills and mountains in Skyrim hide most of the cities and towns from each other.  The only exception I can think of is that you can see Solitude from Morthal, and that seems like a purposeful decision to convey that Morthal is under Solitude’s shadow in more ways than one (although it also kind of ruins Morthal’s vibe of seeming to be in the middle of nowhere even more so than any of the other minor capitals - even Winterhold has the college nearby).

Morrowinds fast travel mechanics are way more layered than what you touched on in the video. On top of silt striders you also have boats, teleportation services, player spells and artifacts that let you move around the map in different routes. That makes you plan your travels and engage with the world even more in my experience.

Say you need to get to a specific ruin. Maybe it's next to city that you know to have a mages guild hall, but the city you're in doesn't. Well you're on the coast and can take a boat to a nearby city that has one, from there you can teleport to the other city since you joined the mages guild earlier and now you are a short walk away from your destination.

God I wish they brought back systems like this... :D

A little clarification :
Morrowind silt striders, boats and guild guides all teleport you. You don't get to actually ride the island on silt strider back. What you see is Abot's immersive travel (a mod)

This is reminding me of when Blue over at OSP did a video on Assassin's Creed, talking about "Accuracy vs Authenticity", and I think it runs parallel to what you're discussing here; what's factually correct and what feels correct can sometimes be two very different things.

Oh, you want to talk about a game that has fast travel but you have no incentive to use it? Spider-Man. You can use the subway stations to fast travel, but how many people do that instead of, you know, web-slinging across the island? Fast travel becomes and afterthought to players when it's made engaging to get from point A to point B.

Bro's got the anyaustin goin' on, that's huge

10:03 There was a stark difference between the super large super empty world of Daggerfall, procedurally generated, and then the much smaller but entirely hand-made world of Morrowind just a few years later.

Something about No Man's Sky, even with its updates it can still feel small. But that's an intentional worldbuilding choice. The universe as it exists is one big simulation made as what is basically a machine's cry for help as it goes through the last 16 minutes of its life.

One of the things I hate about Skyrim is that no npc ever actually has a scripted, vouced conversations with each other outside of special scenes that happen once. Otherwise they all sit in the same room together deathly silent until they are prompted to spout a line when coming close to the player, then it'z directed towards the player. Sometimes they'll talk to themselves but otherwise, silent

Wealth Beyond Measure, Outlander.

Detroit taking shots from all over the world lol

7:35 This is a really good point.

As someone who greew up with low-graphic games, I remember that I put more imagination into those games then I do with modern high-graphic games.

25:10 I LOVE the Elden Ring map so much. You can actually inspect it and find points of interests like mines to go explore with it, and it's not literally just a LOD of the Lands Between

I'm 100% with you on preferring to not have quest markers and mini maps leading you around by the nose!

I actually think it can be done well in modern games, too. Breath of the Wild had a somewhat similar system, for example. Even though main quests had markers on your map, the side quests wouldn't have any markers and the NPCs did a really good job of telling you where you needed to go, plus all the sign posts at crossroads were really helpful as well. It really drew me into the world and made me treat it more like a physical place, like you said.

Also, as an extra aside, I immediately turned off the mini map in that game, too. That really brought it home for me.

On the point of maps, I have never been so immersed as when I played DayZ with a map and compass.
When you got lost all you had to do was find a elevated position and triangulate known map locations in order to find out where exactly you are.
Quite cool to be able to use real life outdoor skills in a game.

Video game world building can be so odd because the mechanics, that players think of as objective truths about the world, have so many specific details that are based on technical or game design challenges.  It's hard to portray a huge army when the game engine can only handle 20 combatants loaded at a time, or when it's only fun to fight with 5.  The point about how Skyrim's mountains block line of sight to make the world feel larger is really good, and games are full of stuff like that, even more linear ones.  City 17 from Half Life wouldn't feel as large if you could just walk directly to Kleiner's lab from the train station