T w e n t y S i d e d

In the past we’ve praised Bethesda for environmental storytelling. You look around some area, observe the placement of items, and find that they tell a story. It makes the place seem richer and more real.

The ratway is not that. The ratway is the opposite of that. The ratway is a place where the world stops making sense and you have to make up your own story to mentally patch the nonsense.

Well, I suppose the thieves put up all the traps to kill all the beggars? For some reason? And the bartender… I guess he doesn’t want customers? And Gian the Fist is standing in the corner of a featureless room because he… uh… is guarding the bear traps? You know, the ones that he blunders into when he comes to fight you. And the rats have been specially trained to only attack people who aren’t already inhabitants of the sewers. And the semi-furnished rooms with fresh food in the middle of the sewer maze are probably just a pantry. For the distant bar. I guess. And the hobos that live down here are in peaceful harmony with the rats and each other, but then attack dangerous-looking travelers because… cult, maybe?

It’s nonsense.

Also: Dr. Rutskarn, Professor of Elder Scrolls Studies at Chocolate Hammer University, has begun a new course, which you can attend via this handy link: The Altered Scrolls: Arena (Part 1: Storyline and Worldbuilding).

I’m prepared to believe that Dr. Rutskarn knows more about the Elder Scrolls than most of the people working at Bethesda. I don’t know if that’s a dig at Rutskarn, or at Bethesda, but I’m pretty sure it’s a dig at somebody.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

You know we’re on a roll when we stop complaining about a Bethesda game so we can complain about another, older Bethesda game. Next week we’re getting back on the main quest.

Also, you can tell I was getting tired when we recorded this. Almost everything out of my mouth was a reflexive movie quote, which is a sure sign that my higher functions have shut down and I’ve reverted to some sort of atavistic parrot-like behavior.

If my head had been fully operational, I might have pointed out that the cannibalism intro is about as clumsy as it can be: A random NPC runs up to you, makes a ridiculous assumption, blathers a bunch of exposition that they have no reason to reveal, and your dialog response boils down to a binary “I accept” / “maybe I’ll accept later”.

This is a really fun game, but calling it a role-playing game is like calling Serious Sam a stealth game. Skyrim will let you do anything BUT roleplay.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

That thing at the 9:50 mark? Where Josh slams face-first into Ysolda? I did that all the time, every chance I got, to a couple of very specific people in Whiterun. If I accidentally missed, I’d turn around and make sure I gave them the Flying Elbow of the Player Character.

For the record, my targets were Ulfred Battle-Born (because he’s a massive dick who gets on my nerves) and the guy who carries lumber around for Belethor. I’m always disappointed that slamming that guy doesn’t cause him to drop the lumber. I like to imagine I’m throwing his stuff on the ground like a bully shoving a kid so he drops his books. I’ve sort of built up this head canon where this guy is always getting picked on by the Dovakin and he never knows why.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.