The Elder Scrolls

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Did Bethesda intentionally make the population of bandits in Skyrim easily outweigh that of cities? I've seen some video titles suggest Skyrim is "apocalyptic" or something similar due to that.

That's an odd criticism for Skyrim specifically, because it was even worse in Oblivion with not just the bandits but also the supposed necromancer splinter faction for the Mages Guild being 95% of all sorcerers.
 
Did Bethesda intentionally make the population of bandits in Skyrim easily outweigh that of cities? I've seen some video titles suggest Skyrim is "apocalyptic" or something similar due to that.
That's an odd criticism for Skyrim specifically, because it was even worse in Oblivion with not just the bandits but also the supposed necromancer splinter faction for the Mages Guild being 95% of all sorcerers.
Yeah I doubt it was some deliberate 4d chess move on Bethesda’s part, it’s just a weird consequence of their game design as usual. Same how there’s apparently a bloody civil war going on in Skyrim but you don’t really encounter much evidence of actual fighting outside that designated questline (though even that questline itself is just a truncated remnant of something originally intended to be a lot more ambitious).
 
Did Bethesda intentionally make the population of bandits in Skyrim easily outweigh that of cities? I've seen some video titles suggest Skyrim is "apocalyptic" or something similar due to that.
No. Killing bandits is fun, and talking to NPCs is cities isn't. Thus the disparity.
 
No. Killing bandits is fun, and talking to Bethedda NPCs in cities isn't. Thus the disparity.

Fixed that for you. Talking to people in Skyrim is boring because everybody is fighting for the title of Most Boring NPC.

Todd whining in that one GDC talk about players slamming the Shut Up button to get the objective isn't a problem in competently written games.
 
Fixed that for you. Talking to people in Skyrim is boring because everybody is fighting for the title of Most Boring NPC.

Todd whining in that one GDC talk about players slamming the Shut Up button to get the objective isn't a problem in competently written games.
I don't play games to read. I play games to stab people in the face.
 
Fixed that for you. Talking to people in Skyrim is boring because everybody is fighting for the title of Most Boring NPC.

Todd whining in that one GDC talk about players slamming the Shut Up button to get the objective isn't a problem in competently written games.
Especially given that Morrowind dialogue is longer and yet, I don't feel the need to skip through, because it's either interesting or informative.
 
As you are sitting down to your evening meal of kwama eggs and scrib jelly,
I'm allergic to scrib jelly, do you guys have troll fat? If you don't I'm afraid I'll have to bounce.
everybody is fighting for the title of Most Boring NPC.
Exactly. I can name like 20 memorable NPCs from Skyrim and most are from whiterun. I remember like 100 characters from side quests in Morrowind.
Especially given that Morrowind dialogue is longer and yet, I don't feel the need to skip through, because it's either interesting or informative.
This is true as well. I was totally captivated by Morrowind and read every line of dialogue and book that i could. Even with objectively worse graphics, the art direction and the world building are, to this day, masterful.

I don't play games to read. I play games to stab people in the face.
While i totally get that, reading has been integral in every game since i think daggerfall. Morrowind and Oblivion made you read books to progress certain quests, and various twists in the story are present in some books that are imo required reading.
When i read for the first time that the tribunal temple may have killed Indoril Nerevar and framed Voryn Dagoth i remember being genuinely shocked and pledging to kill vicec. Haven't had a similar experience in any game to this day.
 
Especially given that Morrowind dialogue is longer and yet, I don't feel the need to skip through, because it's either interesting or informative.
Reminds me of Emil's retarded speech about how they could write the next great American Novel and players would just skip over it.

Sure some players would, but then those players would skip over the most boring slop writing ever too. So now you end up with the players who do want a good story ending up with nothing and the players who skip story content, still skipping it.
 
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/58813 - Devilish Thu'um (OpenMW)
Brings the ancient Nordic Thu’um to Morrowind as a living part of Nord tradition. Powerful Nords can call upon the voice in combat. Those above level 25 are much more likely to wield it, while weaker Nords only rarely possess such power.

Description
  • Adds the Nord thu'um (the voice) to some high-level Nords by chance
Main features
  • Animated shouting by Npcs
  • Screen shakes during shouts
  • Knockdown affect applied on targets
  • Voice files of shouting
  • Randomly applies the thuum to high level Nords (50 % chance for Nords above level 25, 5 % for level 9-25)
  • Adds a white and blacklist in the script for users to easily add or block Npcs as thu'um users.
Requirements
  • OpenMW 0.50 or higher
 
There's a quest for the Imperial Cult in Morrowind where the quest giver asks you to go see an Argonian woman who's able to see and communicate with spirits or something like that. He refers to it as "the sight" and the way he describes it makes it sound unique to Argonians. Is this mentioned anywhere else in the lore or is it only ever mentioned in that quest?
 
There's a quest for the Imperial Cult in Morrowind where the quest giver asks you to go see an Argonian woman who's able to see and communicate with spirits or something like that. He refers to it as "the sight" and the way he describes it makes it sound unique to Argonians. Is this mentioned anywhere else in the lore or is it only ever mentioned in that quest?
Could be a reference to the Hist?
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Hist_Sap
 
Wilhelm of the Aedra - Winter Modjam 2025 / Guild of Mages - May Modathon 2026 - AFFA aka. Douglas Goodall. The actual Morrowind OG dev behind the popular AFFresh (Source) that added 30 low-level quests for flavour and immersion released more similar style mods in the 2025 and now 2026 Modathons.
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Adds a few normal quests to Galbedir and a few subtly silly quests to Procyon. This is a mod that adds a few more quests to the Guild of Mages. Galbedir in Balmora gets four quests in her competition with Ajira. Procyon in Wolverine Hall gets about seven quests, all of which are a bit silly, though still lore appropriate.

The current version is an esp, but I will likely convert it to an esm after the inevitable bugs are found.
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For the Winter Modjam 2025. Frik is concerned about one Wilhelm Bear-Star who may be harassing Tribunal pilgrims. Find Wilhelm and see if he's divinely inspired or a madman.
Frik of the Imperial Cult asks you to investigate one Wilhelm Bear-Star, who the Tribunal Temple has complained about. He may have been harassing pilgrims, but he may also be divinely inspired.
The quests are simple, as befits a modjam. You find Wilhelm in a few locations, then something happens, and you can choose to give someone something or not.
El Toro's Mino-Taqueria - An NPC-Like Creature Dialogue Tutorial
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Go on a very short quest for a minotaur to showcase a method for making creature dialogue function like NPC dialogue. Includes PDF tutorial.
In vanilla Morrowind, creatures do not have Disposition, Factions, nor the ability to use dialogue other than what has been assigned to their ID. This potential workaround does the following:
  • Spawns in an invisible NPC of custom race each time the creature is activated.
  • Gets a saved dispostion value from a creature variable, then greets the player.
  • Updates the creature's disposition variable before deleting itself.
Since the NPC is doing the talking, they can use general dialogue, have a faction, disposition, and can have race-specific dialogue assigned to their race. By placing and removing the NPC each time, this allows for moving the creature around from cell to cell. The NPC can also tell the creature if it has been successfully taunted to initiate combat before self-deletion. I have included a very short quest to showcase this functionality.
 

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