{"id":28429,"date":"2015-09-04T06:45:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T11:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=28429"},"modified":"2015-10-12T11:21:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T16:21:01","slug":"the-altered-scrolls-part-5-cloak-and-fanservice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=28429","title":{"rendered":"The Altered Scrolls, Part 5: Cloak and Fanservice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daggerfall<\/em> kicks off with a history lesson and follows it with an FMV. Modern sensibilities do not so much recoil as uncoil<\/em>, but if you can bear it, you’ll learn two things pretty quickly: that Uriel Septim is a personal friend of yours…<\/p>\n

...who looks nothing like he did in the last game, but never mind...<\/div>
...who looks nothing like he did in the last game, but never mind...<\/div><\/p>\n

…and you're a trusted Imperial agent with a very specific, defined track record of service. So far we’ve had two Elder Scrolls<\/em> games and both have begun with the assumption that you’re a relatively senior imperial agent. The manual actually tells you what you did to win his esteem, but if you ignore this cursory storytelling–easy to do, even in the days when a manual was important–it almost seems as though you’re supposed to be playing the same character you did in the first game. Either way, taking only these games as precedent, one would not predict the Elder Scrolls<\/em> series would become known for letting players determine their own backstory (which, as we’ll get into, was a pretty revolutionary idea for a CRPG).<\/p>\n

You’re charged with putting to rest the ghost of King Lysandus and recovering a letter intended for the queen of Daggerfall. The game starts with you getting shipwrecked and ending up in a dungeon. This will set you up for the rest of the game’s story: political overtures and cloak-and-dagger aesthetics setting up series of elaborate puzzle dungeons.<\/p>\n

The last of which is this dungeon, which is such an unspeakable all-gracious pain in the cripes that it replaced about 45% of my memories of the game.<\/div>
The last of which is this dungeon, which is such an unspeakable all-gracious pain in the cripes that it replaced about 45% of my memories of the game.<\/div><\/p>\n

Which is not to say the game’s theme is halfhearted. Far from it, actually: the game's high fantasy trappings are wrapped up tight in a Game of Thrones<\/em>-styled thematic fabric, highlighted by the fact that the playable area of this game\u00e2\u20ac"the Iliac Bay\u00e2\u20ac"isn't one placid nation, but a collection of tense, culturally opposed factions on the brink of war. The missions by and large involve nosing into the affairs of various royal families, peeking behind the scummy veil of propriety to uncover a cobwebbed heap of romantic intrigue, betrayal, conspiracy, murder, and naked women, like, seriously everywhere.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Which I feel the need to bring up, because it’s one of the game’s most discordant notes. It's a little hard to give credit to the game's ostensibly mature, post-heroic plot when it's presented alongside a buffet of bafflingly out-of-place nudity. Half of the women's outfits are minuscule or sexualized (and only the womens’ outfits) and there's nude sultry-lounging women just hanging out random establishments. Many of the enemies are also naked women or monsters that just so happen to look like posing, buxom naked women. There are temples full of naked women and witch covens full of naked women. Nude men? Virtually absent, and the curious choice of barbie-dolling everything below the waist means that men are conspicuously desexualized in a way that women aren't. I think there’s a couple musclebros in palaces, to be fair, but it’s vastly one way and it doesn’t feel even vaguely historically or setting appropriate.<\/p>\n

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with nakedness. There’s nothing wrong with a fantasy setting where everyone’s nearly naked, particularly in settings like Dark Sun<\/em> where it’s both thematically and logistically appropriate to be lightly dressed. There’s nothing wrong with games that feature exclusively naked breasts when it’s tonally appropriate or called for by the story. And, hell, there’s nothing wrong with erotic games. But Daggerfall<\/em> doesn’t really fit any of those categories. It’s a standard medieval European setup EXCEPT there’s sexualized boobs happening in every other room. Even Game of Thrones<\/em>, infamous for its habit of injecting nudity into any scene that’s going a bit too slowly, contextualizes the nakedness more–in this game it feels rather like they ran up against a sudden deadline and had to borrow sprites from Crafty One Studios next door. It all smacks of that tone-deaf, desensitized school of fantasy erotica that comes from authors who've spent their lives marinated in pandering cheesecake and naturally duplicate it unless they make a special effort not to. It's a role-playing game; clearly the female characters, monsters, and factions should be designed with titillation in mind, regardless of how well it fits in with the rest of the narrative. You<\/a> know <\/a>the trend<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I'm being harsh. The game's got plenty of decent, even cool female characters, and not all female characters have sexual elements to them. All the boobular stuff is ultimately ancillary and disposable; certainly no worse than many of its contemporaries. My strong negative reaction has less to do with its offensiveness in this game and more to do with the fact that as a fantasy and science fiction enthusiast, I've been swimming in this horseshit for so long my arms are getting numb.<\/p>\n

Some of the dungeons are quite appealing-looking. By the way, while I'm looking up or down in most of these screenshots, don't get the idea that it is particularly easy or useful to do so--I just wanted these glamor shots to look good and suffered the appalling obnoxious mouselook function to do so. You will spent most of your time looking straight ahead.<\/div>
Some of the dungeons are quite appealing-looking. By the way, while I'm looking up or down in most of these screenshots, don't get the idea that it is particularly easy or useful to do so--I just wanted these glamor shots to look good and suffered the appalling obnoxious mouselook function to do so. You will spent most of your time looking straight ahead.<\/div><\/p>\n

Now, this is not to say that the presence of sex as a topic was unwelcome. Daggerfall<\/em> did seem to be the only game in the franchise eager to acknowledge that such a thing as sexual congress exists. I can illustrate this perfectly with one example. One of the many in-game book series found in Daggerfall<\/em> presents a frankly narrated, even explicitly erotic sexual encounter between one of its female characters, Queen Barenziah, and a common Khajiit thief. The sexual encounter is not crucial to either the book or the game's narrative, but does somewhat serve to characterize her and foreshadow some of her relationship decisions later in the (book) series, which, in turn, fleshes her out within the context of the game. So to recap: the game contains a narrated sex scene\u00e2\u20ac"even a raunchy, exhibitionist, risque one\u00e2\u20ac"but one that earns a place in the story.<\/p>\n

The book series can be found in later games, but the offending passage is replaced with a tongue-in-cheek, in-universe notification of royal censorship. That's an understandable decision from the developers with regards to the next two games, Morrowind<\/em> and Oblivion<\/em>, which seemed to have generally been designed with a “T” rating in mind. But what about Skyrim<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac"a game which features graphic beheadings in the first few minutes?<\/p>\n

I'm not saying the later games are totally sexless. All three include at least some risque content, usually as a borderline easter egg, but it's all cheesy innuendo and sitcom-styled hijinks played for laughs. None of it serves any real story purpose.<\/p>\n

Daggerfall<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs a bit like the college student who eats nothing but candy for a week because he can. The other games are that kid grown into a middle-aged man who avoids gluten because he's heard some friends say it gave them problems and anyway you can't be too careful. I can’t help but feel a game with a little more maturity than Daggerfall<\/em> and less inhibitions than, say, Oblivion<\/em> could tell some good stories.<\/p>\n

My tangential niggles aside, Daggerfall<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs story is actually pretty good. It's not as elaborate or interesting as the ones belonging to some of its descendants, but it's a fuckload more interesting than the execrable trope-a-dope bonanza in Arena<\/em>. It even ends with a New Vegas<\/em> style choice of who wins the war for the Iliac Bay\u00e2\u20ac"a choice that's neatly negated by subsequent titles, but never mind that. It certainly held my attention.<\/p>\n

For all the game's weaknesses, there are only two that when combined stay my hand from typing a recommendation: the inexcusably shonky controls that are by no means up to the job of piloting the dungeon environments…and the dungeon environments. Even granting that this at heart a dungeon crawling videogame, it could have been a lot worse.<\/p>\n

As a final feature: when I originally wrote this series, I sat down for ten minutes to play from one of my saves. What follows is a summary of ten minutes of (mostly) non-combat gameplay. I’ll do a similar (brand new) summary next week of dungeon gameplay before opening up question-and-answer. Without further ado, I present an entirely unplanned and organic gameplay segment.<\/p>\n

I'm out in the middle of nowhere, which is less than ideal. All the classic adventures of song and legend tend to transpire in places with things. So I move my cursor down to the bottom bar, to “transportation,” and select my sailing ship. I teleport to it instantly. It's a vast, expensive ship; the size and cost of the ship have thus far not proved relevant in any capacity, but there you go.<\/p>\n

Now that I'm on my ship, I go to the map, select one of the provinces at random, then select one of the inns in the middle of nowhere at random. Traveling to it costs me 0 coins\u00e2\u20ac"the perks of having your own ship, I guess. Six hundred thousand gold well spent.<\/p>\n

The inn's name on the map is…some auto-generated bullshit, honestly, I couldn't really tell you. I didn't check in the first place; there's no point in seeing what a place is called because the name is totally meaningless and you're probably never going to go back. Let's just call it The Monkey and Monkey Tavern. I arrive there to find there's actually two taverns in the small loaded area tile, neither of which are called the right name, and a couple of houses. The nearest tavern is about ten feet away, so I summon my horse, ride up to the front door, and unsummon my horse.<\/p>\n

I enter to find a man kneeling permanently by the fire and a woman in a Ren Faire dress. I ask the man for directions to the building we're standing in, and he replies that it's to the east and south some. Then I ask him about current events. He says he's never heard of anyone by that name.<\/p>\n

I ask the woman for news, and she drops several paragraphs of mathematical formula about how the game calculates strength damage.<\/p>\n

I decide to rent a room to heal my wounds. The barkeep asks how many days I want it for\u00e2\u20ac"just one, thanks\u00e2\u20ac"and the game auto-haggles the price down to four gold coins. That's actually most of the gold I have on me; I have several million gold total, but the bulk of that is in the bank. I accept his deal, press the the “rest” and then “rest until healed” icons on my quickbar, and find myself teleported to my room to rest.<\/p>\n

I wander into the hallway and open the door to the next room. Standing in it is a woman in a black bikini, high-heeled leather boots, and a thong. I shut the door to the next room.<\/p>\n

I enter another room that's empty except for what genuinely looks like a half-open cardboard box. I click on the box, and the game informs me I'm stealing and asks if I want to continue. I do. The box contains a red cloak and a gold-spangled “formal brassiere,” which, needless to say, replaces my shirt when I equip it.<\/p>\n

Immediately I hear shouts of “Halt! Halt!” Nobody could have possibly witnessed me taking from the chest\u00e2\u20ac"but someone did anyway. Now the game is glitching out pretty bad and doors are opening for no reason, but I go out to meet the guards. They swing at me and the game asks if I'm resisting arrest. I decide not to.<\/p>\n

On a separate screen, I am read my charges and asked if I'd like to plead guilty or not guilty. I choose not guilty. It asks if I'm going to debate or lie. I choose lie. I fail and my sentence is stretched from one day in jail to nine.<\/p>\n

I'm released from jail and immediately spot an enemy on the horizon\u00e2\u20ac"a random female rogue. She has her back to me, but I recognize the character model\u00e2\u20ac"it's the one with the hood running down to a sleeveless, wide-open vest. I get on my horse, ride towards her, attack with my battle axe, and am informed I've pulled off a sneak attack backstab.<\/p>\n

I quit the game.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daggerfall kicks off with a history lesson and follows it with an FMV. Modern sensibilities do not so much recoil as uncoil, but if you can bear it, you’ll learn two things pretty quickly: that Uriel Septim is a personal friend of yours… …and you're a trusted Imperial agent with a very specific, defined track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elder-scrolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}