The Old and the New - Re: Everything looks different!

Doedel · Post by **Doedel** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:46 am

One of the first things I noticed when I cracked open Oblivion were the many things that were different from Morrowind.

First and foremost, the "one-piece suits". IMO, this seems like a cop-out on Bethesda's part, creating one-piece suits rather than having pants, shoes, shirts, robes, curiasses, pauldrons, greaves, boots, helmets, etc... Imagine my anger when putting on that nice red Dawn robe and finding it replaces EVERYTHING else I wear! I miss the days where I could wear a full suit of armour and slap a robe overtop of it..

Secondly, things look sometimes very different than they did in Morrowind. For instance, Imperial Legion armour. In MW, it looked rather Roman; black engraved armour, square tower shield, helm with cheek flaps, etc etc... in Oblivion however, it looks very much... well, larger, fanciful, and fantasy.

So my main point is, what will be TR's stance on this? Will we "forget" that stuff looked a bit (or a lot) different in Morrowind? Or will we manipulate things a little bit (such as explaining the difference by saying that Legion soldiers in the Imperial Province are "higher echelon" troops with better armour while the occupational Legion forces in Morrowind were simply equipped with lower-grade "field" uniforms)? This second reasoning I like more, not only because it'd allow the use of Morrowind-esque Imperial stuff but also by the fact that City Guards seem to be equipped with custom-made versions of the Imperial Chain armour.. so maybe there is room, out there somewhere, for my beloved jet-black nippled muscle armour?

And as for the different clothes-wearing "system", any insight into that?

Sorry if this has been discussed before. If it has been, I couldn't find it!

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:55 am

I think that Bethesda has been refining their lore over the years, and fixing things they don't like. In Morrowind, the Empire was obviously heavily influenced by the Roman Empire. However, I don't think Bethesda liked that too much, and wanted to set them apart from real-world cultures a bits so they changed some things about the Imperials. We should assume that these new suits of armor are the "official lore" Imperial Guard suits.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:59 pm

Full suits of armor, eh? No mixing pauldrons or helms? Atleast it'll make OoT less of a pain

It also means that when we want to make one peice of armor, we'll have to do a whole set.. but I suppose thats not the end of the world.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:20 pm

I think that it won't be too far fetched to say that the uniform we see in MW is simly uniform of Ordo Legionis (the one stationed in Morrowind).

Morgoth · Post by **Morgoth** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:21 pm

Morden wrote:Full suits of armor, eh? No mixing pauldrons or helms? Atleast it'll make OoT less of a pain It also means that when we want to make one peice of armor, we'll have to do a whole set.. but I suppose thats not the end of the world.

Wow, you can't equip seperate armour pieces individually? That's a bummer. I wonder how uniques, such as the Savior's hide Cuirass will work, then. And I think that robes now offer magic bonuses or something, and they didn't want that to counteract the combat bonuses of armour, by letting you wear both at the same time, which I can understand. I actually miss our Roman Imperials, to tell the truth. Do all of the other races still have the same personalities? As in, are Altmer still cocky, Dunmer still malicious, etc.?

Macar · Post by **Macar** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:19 pm

In one clip I heard an Argonian with an American accent. Say it aint so!

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:06 pm

Only the pauldrons and cuirass were joined. helms, gauntlets, greaves and boots are seperate, but gauntlets are now a single piece. We can thank the xbox for this, as there's simply no reason to join armor pieces other than to make it easier to equip with a gamepad.

I can understand the robes or clothes or armor bit, they really wanted to avoid people stacking CE enchantments to buff up their character, but the stylization will be missed.

We might be able to seperate the pieces of armor through the editor...lemme look around.

EDIT: Damn them! we can't. instead of upper arm, pauldron etc its just upper body.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:44 pm

What's CE stand for? I'm assuming its not 'Collector's Edition'.

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:45 pm

constant effect

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:17 pm

argonians dont have an american accent... partly because there IS no american accent

i havent seen anything in the game that truely impacts anything that we are duing yet. its quite posible that the imerial soldiers in MW wear diff armor to distinguish rank or because its more practical for MW's enviorment.

i dont realy mind any of teh clothing changes... although i do kinda miss the style. its all good thougj, cause we can now actualy see amulets, rings etc.

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:31 pm

Morgoth wrote:Do all of the other races still have the same personalities? As in, are Altmer still cocky, Dunmer still malicious, etc.?

I've met cocky Altmer, and the Dunmer in the CharGen jail in the cell across from yours is certainly malicious, if not downright not very nice(!)

However, the PGE mentions the young Altmer in Sumerset are trying to change the old ways, so they may not all be cocky anymore...

As far as the armor mixing goes, I'm quite sad to see it go. I blame balancing issues.

Doedel · Post by **Doedel** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 12:01 am

I don't particularly mind pauldrons being removed as a seperate armour piece.. I'm more upset that I can't wear robes or coats over my armour anymore. CE magic stacking aside, it was just downright cool; and who says CE magic stacking is a bad thing?

What upsets me most is the fact that there are so many one-piece armour suits, such as the Dark Brotherhood stuff, Dawn robes, etc etc. If at all possible I would like to see something done about this, though I know it is against TR "policy" to change anything Bethesda puts out.. but in this case I hope some exception can be made! Even if it is only splitting one-piece armour suits into cuirass, greaves, boots and gloves! That's fine by me!

Also, the Ordo Legionis explanation is excellent. It fits; each City Guard detachment has its own unique armour, and it's not out of the realm of possibility to conclude that detatchments of Imperial Legion forces can be equipped with different, custom, even locally-made armour. The different Bonemold armours, Ordinator/High Ordinator, City Guard, Imperial City Guard, Palace Guard, etc, lends credence to the fact that there are plenty of different styles of armour being standard equipment for forces of the same Race.

knightmare · Post by **knightmare** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 4:15 am

well about the one piece armor. in the game there are several armor sets that are made up of seperate parts, which proves that it can be done, so if we like it like that then why not just make all the armor that we make for EoT be seperate piece armor.

Doedel · Post by **Doedel** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 9:26 am

That's essentially what I'm asking... if TR will follow Morrowind's seperate-piece equipment, or have some one-piece suits from Oblivion, or a bit of both, or...

Also, are there any other canon pictures, drawings or art of Imperial armour from past games besides Morrowind? All I remember is seeing some shirtless dude in a snapshot of one of the Adventures games who seemed to have some Morrowind-esque Imperial equipment, namely Imperial Steel Pauldrons... he might have had chain greaves on, but I don't remember.

Macar · Post by **Macar** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:37 pm

I dont know if making seperate pieces is plausable. Unless it's verry easy to do, we probably wont do it. We have enough on our plates with HF, without worrying about making separate armor pieces.

CommonsNat · Post by **CommonsNat** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:08 pm

So far as I've seen in Oblvion:

1) Most normal armor sets come in individual pieces: Greaves, boots, cuirass,helmet, and gauntlets/bracers. (I've yet to see pauldrons,either they're part of the cuirass or I'm not very observant.)

2) Usually, one peice outfits are either robes, which take up everything but boots and helmet space, and special equipment, like the arena suits.