Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 19 - Morrowind Philosophy Chat: Vivec, Tribunal, Lorkhan's Heart

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19 - Morrowind Philosophy Chat: Vivec, Tribunal, Lorkhan's Heart · Mythic Mind Games

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to say that this episode is brought to
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  Speaker 1: and leave you in comment let me know what you think.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: But now let's get to the show. Hey, then, welcome back. Now,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: last time I said that the next video in this
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: series would be on the lessons of a VEC. But
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the reality is that I did not fully realize exactly
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: what I was getting into with that. No, I've assembled
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: my notes that's coming along nicely. But I'm currently teaching
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: eight institutional courses in addition to leading the study, so
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: my plate has just been so full. But for sure,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the next video in this series will indeed be on
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the lessons of AVEC. But for now, I bring you
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: our live conversation that we had on morowind Now, I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: will say that this is a very different kind of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: study than what I've been leading so far. So far,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: all of my independent studies as well as my institutional studies,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: have all been text based. They've been literature focused and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: so dealing with this media, but it's a new thing,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and so sort of figuring out how exactly to structure this.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: But that being said, I feel like this was a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: good initial conversation, and as I record this, we've already
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: had our second one, with which I think was even better.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And so that being said, I really think that all
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: these conversations are going to build on each other along
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: with the asynchronous video content. I'm very excited about where
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: things are moving as we advance in the study. But
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: for now, here is our first live conversation as we
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: talk about the main story of Morowind.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I think so, I think the things that I'm kind
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: of like looking forward to So you were talking about,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: like when we were talking, you were saying, like, Okay,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: you know what I'm bringing this is to the full
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: is what I'm bringing to this is the philosophy, right,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: So that's something I'm actually I'm really looking forward to discussing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: I'm really looking forward to discussing law and philosophy and
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: learning little philosophy myself and just kind of end all
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: of that like in context with like the lore stuff.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That's the that's the sort of thing that kind of
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: I'm definitely looking forward to with regards to like, you know,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: with regards to I don't know what your plans were
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: for like this overall, but like I was interested in
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: comparing like, oh, you know, the the Norreverene to the
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Champion of Siri Dill to the Dragon Born, right, you know,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: just and kind of like you know, those stories and
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: kind of like what kind of you know, what strengths
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: and weaknesses might be there, and kind of like you
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: know what kind of like you know, symbols or like
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: philosophical ideas, you know, stuff like that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely be doing that, which which is why
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: one in some of these conversations are easier. I think
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: as we move further, I figure, you know, we begin
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: with with Morowind and then we can look back more
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: so than looking forward, right, And so when we get
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to Oblivion, you know, we can kind of compare that
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: with more Wind, and same with SKYRIMO and whatnot. So yeah,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: these conversations definitely build on each other. And you know,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: my my expertise, you know, I didn't go to school
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: for Elder scrolls. That's not my primary expertise, but you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I do think that looking at it from the perspective
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of philosophy as well as theology, I think that there
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is a lot to work with, and I think that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: what we have to work with will continue to grow,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: especially with comparisons that and whatnot, as we move forward.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so I appreciate you saying that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like, what are the stories in forming our culture
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: right now?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So I love just to hear a little bit about
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: maybe your experience with Elder Scrolls, with Morowin in particular,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: kind of kind of more or less what brings you here?
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And so I mean, I suppose I'll go first briefly,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I've already talked aout a little bit of that in
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: some of the recordings. But you know, I mean I've
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: been playing these games basically since Morowin came out, more
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: or less, which I'm not I was pretty young at
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the time, but you know, I had smaller brothers which
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: helped to raise me up in that and you know,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the gaming of the time, and even though as an
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: adult for roughly a decade or so, I basically stopped
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: playing video games, you know, when I'm working on school,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: New Family Dynamics, everything, Elder Scrolls is something that just
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: sort of stuck around. And so, yeah, as I've been
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: returning to games after really going undergoing a literary renaissance
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and just kind of recognizing the value of stories more
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: broadly speaking, I thought that this would it'd be worthwhile
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to really consider the kind of almost quasi literary role
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that games played for me in my youth growing up
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: since then, as well as what kind of role maybe
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: they can play here and now. I thought something like
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the Elder Scrolls really can help to fit work in
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that niche pretty well. And so, Chris, we told me
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: something about your experience with these games. What Oprings it here?
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: I think my cousin Nick had it when I was
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: like either in high school or college, your early college,
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: and I played it and then went to the store
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: later on and picked it up copy of marl And and
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: Guid to play in, and then kind of picked up
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Oblivion Skyrim after that and put too many hours in
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: each game. You know, watch a few Lore videos and
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: stuff like that just for noise when I'm doing a
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: bunch of paperwork or something. But yeah, I just kind
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: of always I thought they were pretty enjoyable games, even
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: though it like Oblivion with a gun knockoffs that they
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: did when they ruin Fallout. So, so, what is it
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: about these games in particular, or more away in particular
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: that it kind of has a lasting impact for you think?
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of it was just being able
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: to wander around aimlessly, I guess, like and just kind
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: of find kind of find adventures on my own to
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: go accomplish like a lot of times. It wasn't like
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: a lot of times I would just kind of avoid
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: the main storyline. In fact, most of the times I
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: played Skyrim, I would just kind of avoid kicking off
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: the main storyline altogether and just wander around forever.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really easy to do in these games, to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: just ignore the main storyline altogether. You do the random exploring,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you do the side the factions whatnot, and then you know, eventually,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: once you're at the point where you're one hitting everything right,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: then maybe you'll finish the main story. All right, Cool, Kyle,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: tell us about your experience with this game or these
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: games or whatever.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm gonna I'm going to age myself as
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: a as a young and I really only have experience
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: with Skyrim. Really only have experience with Skyrim, even the
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: Oblivion remaster I played for maybe like I got maybe
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: like fifteen hours of playtime, and then it was just
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: I felt guilty because I was just was putting too
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: much time into it. It would be tempting to do
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: that at the end of the day. Instead it'd be
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: more productive. So I put that down. So I never
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: finished that game. I forgot to say something very important.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: I did want to start out by saying, Hale Tallows,
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: there isn't God Man and glory to the storm cloaks,
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: because that's important. That's an important not to give. But
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: so I played Skyrim a lot as a kid. I
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: probably over like the moded version on my computer and
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: on the Xbox through sixty I've put in a couple
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: hundred hours into it, probably, which I don't know. Looking
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: back on that, it's like I wish maybe I didn't
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: put in so much time, but it is what it is.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: And then oftentimes just as a fun little thing. So
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: I used to work as a notion of Lifeguard, and
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: so there around the Lifeguard Standpum my best friend John,
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: and we would get bored sometimes because sometimes we would
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: sit the bay together and we would just play Skyrim
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: lore videos. So we would have a YouTube auto play
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: of all the marrow wind lore and lore Can's Heart
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: and the disappearance of the Dwemmer. And so I feel
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: like I've heard the creation with a few times. Granted
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: it's been about ten years since then, so a lot
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: of it is new once again to me. But yeah,
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: so big Skyrim fan, big Skyrim lore guy. I do
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: can think kind of like you were saying, and it's
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: quasi literary role. Like video games don't do a great job,
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: or at least don't. They're not comparable to stories in
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: terms of really like the characters and stories because they
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: just doesn't tend to be as deep in that regard.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: But in terms of the world building, oftentimes it's right
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: there alongside in terms of the thought that's placed into
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: this world and creation myth is kind of thing that's
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: like that. So I do think it'll be a fun
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: talk about.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's definitely something that I've found. Even though I've
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: been playing these games for many years, I am not
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: someone who's really done a lot deep dives into the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: lore until just relatively recently. I mean I picked up
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a lot just playing the games and whatnot, And you know,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes a video will come across my YouTube recommendations and
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you'll check it out. It's me and my saw not
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: too long ago about you know, all right, time to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: go to bed, and then you find yourself right watching
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: like the top ten Barrels in Skyrim or something. But
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: you know, so I've picked up some stuff along the way,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but it's only really recently when I started like looking
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: at the creation myth, you know, reading some of the
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: universe tech, which I had never really done before. Right,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you find that you look at the value
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to see where the skill books are and then otherwise
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: just move on. But you know, I've actually been looking
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: at I mean, and I can tell that they really
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: put some thought into this universe. Like I imagine moving forward,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: once you get to Elder Scroll six, I'm sure all
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the Intex books will just be AI generated, but at
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: least up to this point, like they thought it was
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: important to have people literally just write books that most
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: players are not going to read, because they recognize an
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: importance of having that broader world in which you would
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: have it even if most people aren't going to access
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: those broader realms. And so you know what you're saying
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: about like a world building, Well, I don't think it's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the same caliber of what you get from Tolkien or something.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I don't make that argument. I think on the complexity level,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it's kind of it's moving in that direction once you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: really start to get into details. So even if it's
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: not the same level of value, it's still that level complexity.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, well you're you're also comparing it.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: To the the standard.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: The grandfather of Yeah. Yeah, the standard that you hit
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: me of what a fantasy story should.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Be I've got.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: Whereas on the pop level, it is probably better than
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: a lot of what's out there, you know, and the
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: fact is this is a popularly accessible franchise, correct.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: I've like, I've actually found myself actually enjoying the world
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: building of stories more than a lot of the stories themselves.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: Like once I kind of heard about like Tolkien and stuff,
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: I actually picked up and read The Cimarillion before anything
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: else and really enjoyed it.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't really fit.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I read that in the Hobbit and then started doing
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: The Lord of the Rings, and I think I got
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: to like The Spider's Layer, like set the book down,
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: went back to school that semester and didn't touch it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Case you got all the way to the end and
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: then you stop.
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: But uh, but yeah, I've always enjoyed like how authors
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: set up their worlds, and it wasn't like if I'm remembering, right,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: isn't it like the Elder Scrolls, like originally like a
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: group of guys like D and D world that they started,
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: and then like they that's kind of what they used
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: to kind of springboard off of to create the original
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: video games.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can I can only assume that's
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: the case, and based on what I know of the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the the early games. I mean, I I've not someone
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: who I've ever played D and D myself, don't anything
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: against it. I just never have. But I definitely think
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that this game just sort of spawned out out of that,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: as a lot of fantasy games have. H I mean,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: even like early Final Fantasy is is very influenced by it.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of fantasy role playing games spin
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: out of the table.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Tops well, even the their mechanics and morel and just
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: still turn based. Even looks like it's you know, going
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: on in real time.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, even if you know you gould hit
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: something and there's a die being kind of the scenes,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it feels so nerdy for me to say, but it's just,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you know, it's true. I've been reading through the Skyrim
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: library at least here and there. I'm not going to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: read every single text, but I you know, I've read
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a good portion of it. And the world building is
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: really interesting. How you know, they have entire histories written out,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: they have you know, all these fables and stories and legends,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and yeah, there's a lot of world building there that definitely,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: as Kyle said, it gets buff and beyond a lot
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of what's available in the pop media, whether we're talking
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: about shows, games, or movies, and I think there's a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: lot of value there.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: I think to the credit of something like video games
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: is well, for how long? How old is the franchise? Right,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: So if you take game number one to Skyrim, there's
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: probably something like thirty years, maybe twenty, because they used
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: to come out closer to each other, and so the
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: fact is they like they probably didn't. Yeah, I'm sure
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: the first game wasn't that deep. I'm sure the second
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: game wasn't that deep, and it probably begins to get
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: that depth beginning in Marrow. But it's iterative and it
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: adds to itself, and so you have this twenty year
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: process where you're able to create a mythos and at
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: the same time, because people aren't so invested and because
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: it's kind of this you've watched history unfold over these
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: thousands of years in game, they can retcon things by
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: just easily passing it off as the development of the
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: in world theology. Yeah you have. You can have a
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: new mystic or a new a new divine, a new
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: revelation that adds and that adds that next level of
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: iteration to create this and more full and more unified
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: mythos m.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, and I just looked it up. The
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: first one did come out in ninety four, so we're
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a little over thirty years at this point. So yeah, yeah,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you're you're It's one value that we have of having
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: everything come from inside the universe that they don't need
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: retcon anything, right, It's always just there can be some
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: different taiale or maybe someone got something wrong or something
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of that nature. Kind of kind of like to bring
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: it back to Tolkien, kind of like what he did
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: with the Hobbit right where he he changed you know
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: how that interplay happened between Bilbo and Galum, and then
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: in Lord of the Rings he just said, oh, well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: there are two different accounts of what happened, uh, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: so he just kind of worked it into the story,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: which I mean, it's are you.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: Just say that that that bit of information came from
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: Malik the liar?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So right, exactly exactly, Chris Simms. Since you've played, you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: since you've had some time with Morowind, I mean, how
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: how do you believe this game compares to say, Obliving
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: in Skyrim? How where where do you place it?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: I remember really like being engrossed by it, like when
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: I first played it, and then I went back to it,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: like after having played a Living in Skyrim and realized
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: how much extra work it was, Like I actually had
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: to like like we needed like an actual physical map
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: to sit down and try to figure out like where
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: I was and where I needed to go outside of
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: the game, like I got to, I guess, dependent on
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: the mechanics of like you know, having the waypoints and
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: everything like that. But I remember, like when I was,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: you know, playing it back in high school, just being
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: you know, pretty engrossed by it, and you know there
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: was something extra to the having to look up on
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: a map which direction I had to go and where
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: something was and like actually having to read through like
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: the journals and stuff like that to actually find out
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: where I needed to go. I kind of just be
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: so lazy. So actually kind of I guess quite a
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: little more effort, and that was kind of I guess
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: something special at the time.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: For sure, I.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Would definitely echo that that it does take a lot
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: more work to play more and you can't just fast
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: travel everywhere and follow your quest markers and you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: skip all the tacks and just just do the game.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: The game, it does involve a lot of thought, involves
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: reading the drum andals. You know, go find that tree
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and then take a left and whatnot.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: And all your choices are like embedded in the text
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: of like what they're saying. Like it wasn't just like
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: a list of four options afterwards that you could pick from.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: You actually had to kind of go up through and
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: like click on the links like of different parts of
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: that what they just said in order to figure out
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: what you where you wanted to go in the conversation.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And I think that there's one hand, it can kind
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of frustrate and it can get tedious, but at the
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: same time, I think there's a lot of value in
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: that in that you know what the primary criticism brought
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: against video games is that that are wasted time, turning
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: your brain to mush, right, And so I think that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: game that forced you to delay some gratification, slow down,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: pay attention to the details. It is still fun, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: in a way that's causing that sort of stimulation that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: can give you the right sort of practice, right way
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of thinking, that that can have real world benefit. Now
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: obviously with anything, and you know, if you're just playing
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: morow Wind all day and ignoring all your responsibilities, that's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: not a good thing. But you know, using using prudence
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: as you organize your hobbies and your life responsibilities. Like,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I think that that sort of gameplay is something that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: can actually be beneficial and not purely a waste of times.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: It's an exercise and thought and patience. And you know,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I can say that as I've just recently jumped back
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: intomorrow and some ink leading up to this the study,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I actually find it really refreshing that they don't hold
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: your hand and that you have to stop, think, slow down.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I think there's something very I don't know, very I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: don't know, I guess me and refreshing is the best
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: word well, Ian, welcome to the party.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I forgot I was in a different
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: time zone. I was like, oh no, and then I
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: couldn't find anything. I feel very awkward. Also I'm a stranger.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: No, no, no worries. You made it. We were just
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: we started off by just talking about basically what what
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: brings it here? I mean, what's your experience with Elder
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: scrolls or more into particular kind of wherever you want
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: to go with that.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Oh golly, So my experience with Elder scrolls uh started
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: when I was sixteen and I played Oblivion and that
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: was my that was my introduction into the Elder scrolls.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And I thought, yeah, I'll I totally want to try this,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: uh because I had I had friends who played Morowind
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: and they said, oh, you should totally play moro Wind
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, totally, and I did. I
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: tried it and and I cannot I cannot stress enough
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: to my great disappointment. Like at you know, at the time,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: like it didn't take very long. I I like bounced
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: off it after an hour or two because it like
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: you know, the it was it was so aged in
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: in comparison and like the things that I'm thinking about.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: In particular for me, which were really rough was actually
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: the movement speed, like how slow the character moves, and
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: also the uh I was used to playing. I was
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: used to playing action games, so there was this So
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: there was this, uh, this cognitive dissonance. I guess when
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: uh you swing your sword and it doesn't actually it
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't actually praka hit uh it it's a it's you know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: it's a it's an unseen dice roll, right, So that
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: was that was a little rough. I've tried to get
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: into it, like as a game. I've tried to get
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: into it off and on over the years. I've always
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: kind of struggled with that. But everything that I know
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: about Moral Wind I've absorbed from my friends or online
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: or like lots and lots of like Elder Scrolls video essays,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: and I've been like getting like really hardcore into you,
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: just like you, just like the law in general. So
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: that's my just be all sorry if that was too long.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: No, not at all, And that's pretty pretty common. Most
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls people that you speak with mostly began with
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Oblivion or Skyrim and have a similar kind of take
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: where Marowind it's a it's a different it's a different
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: system comparatively, it's it's very clunky. It does have that
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: dice rolled mechanic where it feels kind unrealistic that you
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: see your weapon hitting the target but it's not actually
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: doing anything.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I think, if you know what to expect, I'm sorry, no, no, god,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I think if you know what to expect, right, that's
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: completely different at the impressionable at the impressonable age of sixteen,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: but like you know, with a limited experience, that was whiplash.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and that's that's totally fair. I think that
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: what I like about Marwind is, you know, on one hand,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: there there's a story. But I mean, to be honest,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: when I was first playing it as as a kid,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I mean up till relatively recently, I can't honestly say
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: it was the story itself that really grips me. I mean,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: if you ask, I don't know, fifteen year old me,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: what's the story of this game that you're playing, I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: would say, I don't really know. But it's kind of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: fun because Morowin doesn't just throw it out at you
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: kind of like the other games do. Right. It involves
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it's a lot more of a personal investment to figure
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: out what it is that's going on. But what I
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: like about more Wind is just how incredibly open it
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: is and how much flexibility there is compared to Oblivion,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: compared to Skyrum, which each title that we get the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: scope of, like what you can do gets more and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: more narrow because they're probably trying to make it easily
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: accessible to a wider market, which which means you put
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: some more put some bumpers off there, you know, give
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: us some more railings. But you know, in Morewin, I
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: mean you even though there's no fast travel, I mean
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you can make a custom spell and like jump across
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the map or you know, just total flexibility in how
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you approach the game, as well as like countless factions
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that you can get involved in. You got your standard Fighter, Warrior, Thief,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: but then you also have like the Great Houses, like
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: all these different things, the Imperial Cult and Imperial Legion
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and the Temple Cult, and it's just so much variety
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: in how you're going to plot out your path or
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it's moving past that. You know, you get your four
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: side guilds, and that's that's about it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Trying to collect enough quest in one area of the
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: map to make it worth walking all the way over there.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I think I think the strength of the strength of
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Morowind it's the it's the strong I think Morowind is
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: the strongest of all of the games in terms of uh,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: in terms of world building, in terms of in terms
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: of narrative and like presentation in that way, because like
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: with Oblivion, for example, and even Skyrim, you have like
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: this on Rail's Dungeon kind of sort of that you're
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: that that you know that, and and like it's like
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: it serves its purpose. There's nothing like inherently wrong with it,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: but you have to like, but you have to go
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: through this entire sequence before it finally opened, both both
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: of those games before it finally opens up and more
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: when it's you know, hey, what's your name? Cool, get
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: off the boat. You're there. You just just you're ready
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: to go. And that's like and that that is like
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: design wise, that is I think that is the superior
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: design for an open world game that encourages like open worlds.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: You know, see see the world, see you know, see
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the see the dark elf culture mired in tradition, see
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the the the interplay of the politics between the houses
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: you know, like all that stuff like right right away.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a really good point that there is
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: no starting dungeon, you know, unlike Oblivion, unlike Skyrim, that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you're just there. And I think that I think that
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: modern audiences, maybe this is right. Maybe that is a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: little bit overwhelming for people. I think that because we've
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: been so trained for that quick fix, like we need
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: some excitement right away, and instead of beginning with mystery,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: instead of beginning with questions to answer, we want to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: begin by having the answer given to us. And I
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: speak we obviously generally the market. And so I don't know.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Even though I think that I agree with you that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: more Wind does have the superior storytelling style, especially for
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: this type of game, maybe a game like Morwin wouldn't
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: be all that successful today. I don't know, what do
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you think. I think.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: I think like a lot like Oblivion and Skyrim, they
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: definitely have a little more hand holding in I guess
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: the player's calibration to the game mechanics and stuff like that.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: More when they do they do set stuff up for
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: you to like to like kind of see the mechanics
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: and try to they try to like leave stuff in
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: like that first house you walk through after you talk
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: to uh, I don't know the ies guy.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what his name is.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: But when you walk out of that house and into
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: the little courtyard and stuff, they do have stuff around
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: and they try to set it out so that you
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: can see it and think, oh, I need to pick
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: up this lock pick and go over to you know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: this thing on the shelf and learn how to pick
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: locks and stuff like that. I need to look in
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: this barrel to find this ring. You know, that will
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: come up later. But like they try to set that up,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: but it's not as handholdly as like, you know, Oblivion,
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: where they're like, you're forced to be in this little
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: dungeon until you walk all the way through, you know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: and they're going to keep dropping prompts on you, telling
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: you you know, how to shoot a bow and how
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: to swing your sword and everything else. And now you
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: can get back to the storyline after you killed a
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: couple of rats and zombies. Yeah, I think it. They
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: kind of we're a little more discreet, but still had
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff out there. If you were
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: kind of looking around and exploring, you'd find it and
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: be able to kind of move on and figure out
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: how to do things. So I don't think that'd work
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: out so well. I'm even thinking about my kids playing
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: some of the games that I've done.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: They quickly are.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Like, Dad, why isn't this like just so, I like,
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: why can't I just go right to this? And I'm like, well,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: because they're trying to teach you how to do it
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: and it's not like so obvious.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Oh you're done. I'm sorry. So I think the I
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: would say, so, I'm I'm kind of I'm kind of
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: pondering over what you guys were talking about and kind
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: of whether or not you'd think, like, oh, like games
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: like this would work today, And I would say, so,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm I'm one of those people like I'm chronically online,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I'm chronically kind of like plugged into the gaming scene
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: in the gaming industry and stuff like that. I think, like,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: you know, these these these games do insanely well, Like
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: you know, they they do well, they do well all
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: the time. I mean, like, I don't know if any
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: of you were paying attention to the I don't know
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: how many people were paying attention to the numbers that
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Oblivion Remastered sold when it came out in April this year. Uh,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: it sold I want to say, like four million copies
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: in the first month, which was more than it did
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: initially on release. Like there is so like you know,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: there is there is absolutely like a market for open
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: world games, like people like people are doing them all
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the time, and it's actually gotten to the point where
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: other studios Cuz Bethesda used to be kind of like
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: the kind of the pioneer when it came to like
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: the open world RPG like back in the day, but
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: after more like around the time of Skyrim. After Skyrim,
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: basically all these other studios kind of caught up and
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: then kind of like surpassed them just like in terms
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: of like you know, like technical ability right like you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: like things like that. So, I mean there's there's there's
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: total there's totally like you know, like a market for
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: this sort of thing. Now, Like, is there a market
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: for a game you know, eggs, you know exactly like
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: moroind kind of like with it's with its like very
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: early twenty two thousands systems in twenty twenty five. I
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: think that would be I think that would be a
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: little that would definitely be a harder sell. It would
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: have to be it would have to be modernized more.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: But like there's there's there's no there's there's nothing particularly
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: dated about game design philosophy ideas such as like get
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: off the boat and you're there. Right before I joined
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: the class, I was playing basically, I was playing like
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: a little game, just just trying it out out of curiosity.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: It's called dread Delusion, and it sells itself as a
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Morowind spiritual successor, and it I mean it literally does it,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: and it literally does the same thing. Hey, you're on
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: a boat, like, you know, get off the boat. Okay,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: you're in the world. So I don't know if that
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: answers your question Andrew or not.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I definitely think that obviously there's a
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: market for open world in general, and that moro Wind
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: it would require a true remaster or a remake rather
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to really make it today. And if it did that,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think Bethesta would be swimming cash. Yet again,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: if they did a good remaster. Yeah, isn't there like.
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: A mod group doing something like in the Skyrim engine
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: they're trying.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: To reb Yeah, the Skywin. They've been working on that
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: for ten years. They've been what's well, what's crazy to
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: me is that they they're doing Skyblivion and Skyblivion. They
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: they're doing a lot. They're like doing a development wise,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: they're doing a lot better on that one. That one's
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: lady to come out this year or maybe early next year.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Like it's it's really really close. So I guess I
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: guess they got a lot more people on that one
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: or something. I have no idea, but yeah, sky Wind's
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: just sky. Sky Wind's been crawling.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on it for however long.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: It's been a long time since they've started on that.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Like I feel like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well at first I thought they were starting trying
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: to make remake more Wind and Oblivion's engine and sky.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they did. That's playable. It's like missing some features,
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: like I know, like I was watching somebody do a
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: comparison more of more Oblivion and the original uh in
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: the original Morawind, and they were they were talking about
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: like it's not like it's it's it's not it's not comprehensive,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: but like yeah, it's like that's been out for years.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: That's playable. So like if you so, if you so,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: if you liked oblivion, you could certainly do that.
• 32:19
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• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the show notes.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: One thing that did just come to mind is because
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: of like the slower pace that mor One kind of
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: forced upon you with having to kind of read through things,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: I feel like I would spend more time making like
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: actual moral decisions about things about like different questions and stuff,
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Whereas like by the time Skyrim I was playing Skyrim,
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: I was basically just running from one quest marker to
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: the next, and then just realized that I had just
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: like you know, killed a bunch of innocent people and
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: like participating in some cannibal ritual or something like that,
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Like like, oh wait, maybe I shouldn't have done that,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: but I got a cool a weapon now.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: So I guess I just caught up in the rush.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just kind of rushing from waypoint to waypoint and
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: not really paying attention to what was actually going on
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: in the story. But like Marl and I definitely, you know,
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: I was like, I'm gonna find the vampires and kill
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: them all, and like, you know, for all the people
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: that I they're like, you know, enslaved and stuff like
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: that and actually making those kind of decisions because it
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: was actually kind of reading through what the dialogue was
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: and that just kind of clicking past.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there's a lot of value in
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: that in that, as I said, it makes you slow down,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: think about what you're doing. You're you're more intentional, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think that there is some some more potential practical
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: value in that kind of exercise versus the sky Room.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to fast travel where and go where
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: if my little quest marker tells me to go, and
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever's gonna give me the best reward. I
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: I think it's interesting that once they you know, write
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: the books in one game, also to do it is
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: just import the text file over to the next game
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: and they got you know, the same library and then
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: you know, just to kind of add on from there.
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: That's kind of a neat kind of building up, kind
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: of a compounding, you know, not just that you're building
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: up on the storyline, but you know you're just adding
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: more and more to the game itself as it kind
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: of goes through years.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, go ahead, you no you first, No, Yeah,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: I was just I was just gonna echo that that. Yeah,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it is. It's cool how they're able to build and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: compound and further complicate that the lore on that. And
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: then have either of you played es with the online one.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: I played, so I.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Played like the three like you know, first couple levels
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: or whatever that you could do for like a little bit.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've put Oh golly, let me let me let
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: me look at my Steam how many hours did I
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: put into uh, Elder Scrolls. Wow, a lot more than
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I thought so Elder Scrolls On. I've put a fair
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: bit of time into Elder Scrolls Online, apparently that I
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: don't remember doing. But what I do remember about the
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: game is that it's very Elder Scrolls Online is very
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: much a mixed bag as a game, and it's also
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: like the reception to it is also very much a
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: mixed bag. There's lots of people that love Elder Scrolls Online,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: and there's lots of diehard Elder Scrolls fans that hate
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Elder Scrolls Online. And for me, Elder Scrolls Online was
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I loved being in the world. It's a world I
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: wanted to be in. I really liked the story with
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: Mana Marco and what he was trying to do in
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the second era. But I found the combat itself to
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: be I found the combat to be extremely boring, and
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: the it was just it had a lot of grindy
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: momo stuff going on that I, you know, that I
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: didn't really care for. I would just rather play like
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: a like a classic Elder Scrolls game instead of doing
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: like all of the you know, the the the fetch
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: quests and collect twenty five you know, drag Claus or
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: or you know whatever. There's some there's some cool additions
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: to the lore that they've put in the game, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: there's also some that are so so or are or
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: not so great. It's definitely it's definitely a mixed bag
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: of a game. There's stuff to love, there's stuff there's
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: not so not so much.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: And just be glad you didn't play EverQuest.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: You get that.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: And also you get the dice rolls behind every swing
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: your sword.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I just don't think I have it in me
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: for MMOs anymore, because what you were saying that there's
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: so much of just the fetch quests, say, and just
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: they're so so repetitive. I mean, the the only m momo
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I've really put a lot of time in back in
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: the day was Wow, I did play well for a while,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: but I feel like at this point just the payoff
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: is not worth the amount of time that you have
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to invest in them.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: So I was I was watching a video. So I
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: was watching a video earlier today and from like a
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: from like a lower channel that I follow, and he
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: was actually talking about the Morowind expansion for s O
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: and this he actually, uh, this guy his name is
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: like Kotho or something, and he said, like his YouTube channel,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, and he said he was originally gonna write
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: kind of like a negative script for a video and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: then he threw that in the trash because he wanted
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: to do something positive. So we talked about the Morowind
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: expansion for the MMO and he said that the the
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: good thing. And this guy like, this guy knows his stuff.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: The he's got like a seven and a half hour
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: video on the lessons of the VEC and he goes into.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not doing that, yeah, but he goes.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: He like and he he like, he he he goes this,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: he he he goes he goes was in deep. But
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: the thing that he was talking about that he said,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: so so did really really well for Morowind was that
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: it expanded on the story of Sotha Sil and actually
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: just like, uh, the the you know, one of the
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: tribunal gods of Morowind in just a very compelling way.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: It so happened before or after main.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: But before it's the second era, Okay, Yeah, but like
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like it's like it's it's it's it's
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: too much to get into and I don't want to
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: bog down the conversation. But he like he was outlining
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: how it actually expands on the Sotha Cill character in
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: actually like a very compelling way from the bas from
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: the Bass game.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I might have to look look at the highlights
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of what they add because again I'm not gonna I
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: did play maybe it was roughly when it came out
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: or so for hour or two, and then I decided
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: I just want to go play Skyrim. I don't know.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: To me, Elder Scrolls, is it is that open world maybe,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: I just I don't know. To me, it doesn't translate
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: into that multiplayer space. It's still maintained that Elder Scrolls
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: feel that that I looked for. To me, the the
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Marrowin story is the most difficult to assess because it's
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: kind of the It's it's the most sprawling of the stories,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: so it's hard to really pin down, like what is happening?
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: What is the archetypal message that we take from this?
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I suppose, I don't know, Maybe maybe
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: I can push that back, you know, whether you played
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the game or just explort some of the lore. I mean,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: what would you say, is maybe the primary theme or
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: message or yeah, I mean that's that. What was the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: primary theme or message of the story of Morewind just fair,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: fair enough.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: That's a big question, and I.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Feel like Marrowin is the most difficult to address.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, voice Cliff Racers, for one.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so like like I'm trying to I don't
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: I feel like what you asked that question? And I
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: feel I felt like I just got hit in the
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: head with a sledgehammer. Like I like, I'm trying, like
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: because I'm actually like you know, I'm I'm like, I'm
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: thinking of like the story in my head and like
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: the major characters. Like so when I think, when I
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: think morowind right, I think, you know, the nerra Verene
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: and the Tribunal and uh uh you know, uh, the
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Charmot degth Er with the Red Mountain and the Heart
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: of Lorcan and you know all of that. It's like
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: there's there's there, there's there's there's so much going on there.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: You've got the You've you've got like, you know, Narravar
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: being betrayed by his friends. You have kind of the
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: the the and it's all like the the the disappearing
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: of the Dwimmer, the ascension of the tribunal and then
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: kind of like the Nervoarene kind of doing the doing
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: the the the ghost walk I think it's called, uh,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: kind of like and kind of like becoming kind of
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: like the new Narravar, and just like there's there's there's
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: there's so there's so much there that's just kind of
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: like about like you know, uh, you know it's you know,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: kind of the betrayal and self service and religious and
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: historical propaganda, and you know again you have like this
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: dark Elf culture that is just absolutely just like mired
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: and stuck in its true and its traditions with you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: with the with the the politics of of the houses,
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: the rule of kind of like a decaying tribunal. Just yeah,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: like yeah, I'm kind of I'm just kind of I'm
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: kind of short circuiting, just kind of thinking about it all.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: It's almost too much. And they managed to take this
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: story they take, they manage to take all of the elements,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: like even the law itself, Like the law is not
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: even just there for its own sake. The law actually
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: informs everything that's going on in the main plot. Everything
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: is so brilliant, brilliantly interwoven together, like with just kind
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: of with everything that's happening in the main plot.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's why in my story overview, you know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: I got to begin based at the beginning of the creation.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Of the world.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: You yeah, you absolutely have to begin at the beginning.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Like so like you were when we were we were
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: talking about like you know, kind of like creation myths
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: and how like yo, that that kind of needs like
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: its own course to really understand. And you're absolutely right.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: But one of the things that I was kind of
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: thinking about when I made that comment was, you know
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: how we kind of have like this saying, like you know,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: in our Christian tradition, which is scripture, interpret interpret scripture.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: I was kind of thinking the same thing with like
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: with elder scrolls law, like especially there's there's the there's
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of dense stuff going on where it's
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: like the law interprets law, like especially when you know
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: kind of like who the writers are, and like, you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: if any of you, if anybody knows the name Michael Kirkbride,
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: who was kind of like a big writer for Morowind
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: and like and just like all of his you know,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: all of his his you know, his his education, his
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: influences just kind of like on the writing. And then
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: just like again like the lore, the mythology, the theology,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: like in the history, everything informs like the story of
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Morowind and the thirty six and one Lessons of the Vech.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: You can't even begin to hope to understand what the
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: thirty six Lessons of the VEC are about if you
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: do not know the mythology, the theology, the history. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: then also the fact that like Kirkbride himself is a
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: big fan of Christian Gnosticism and h and Hinduism, like
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: just like you know, just like for his like creative inspiration.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm not super familiar with Eastern thought,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: but nacissism, it's very clearly evident in the I don't
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: know the framing of the whole story.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: I my my one thought kind of morowin from what
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: I remember is it always felt really kind of bleak,
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: like you're sitting you're constantly going through like the ruins
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: of one civilization that collapsed. Meanwhile, just kind of in
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: the story, you'd know something's common that's going to wreck
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: the civilization you're in, and then you know, I done
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: playing the game. Move on, play Oblivion, move on play Skyrim,
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: and get to the one expansion they had for Skyrim
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: where you're you're sitting off on that one island and
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: you're looking over the water and all as you're seeing
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: is like red mountain and just ash.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Everywhere, like in the hole.
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: The whole like hot and it is just like almost
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: like buried now in ash.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, as I think about these things that
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: we've been talking about, I mean, maybe the leading theme
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of Borrow Wind is the results of a of basically
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: the will to power. Right that this is a people
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: who are immersed in Daydrech worship. I mean, it's it's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: largely how the Dunmer you know, came to be, that
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: how the climber ended up on Vardenfel and eventually became
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: the Dunmer. It's it's through their desire for power and
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: through their relation with the Dedra, who are almost entirely
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: typified by power. The you know, it's large. It separates
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the danger from the Adra, whereas the Adra are perhaps
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: more likely to you know, actually care about people and
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to cultivate men to help them to be more fully
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: themselves in line with the ideal of what a person
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: can be, whereas for the most part, the Dadra are
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: more interested in creating their own personal champions, you know,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: their own personal threat. You know, they live according to
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: to power rather than sacrificial leadership. And so you know,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: maybe this is why Dunbart, I mean, why the Dunbar
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: tend to be a quite you know, literally a darkened people,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: that that was a curse that was put on them,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: but also that the land itself is dark and kind
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: of mired and shadow and muck and just this despair.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: And then looking specifically at the story that leads to
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: morowind with the betrayal of the tribunal as they grasped
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: at godhood, you know, at divinity. Obviously you've got Degathor,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: who's doing something very similar, right, Everyone's grasping for power,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and as inevitably happens, they end up getting grasped by
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: power and kind of falling into darkens themselves as well
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: as darkening the land around them. And then you have
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: the returned Navar so to speak, who is bringing justice
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that the one who was betrayed, the one who was
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: cast aside. Now he's the one who's going to emerge
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: and you know, pull down those who were grasping at power,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: at greatness. And so maybe this is some kind of
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, first and foremost, it's the story, but maybe
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: it can serve as a commentary on what happens when
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: you have a culture based around this raw will to power.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I haven't fully thought this through. That
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: there might be some holes in that.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: It's just what I think.
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: There's going to be holes in any of it, because
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: you know it's a subcreated myth. But I think it's
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: interesting because you have the Daja, who are essentially servants
• 48:27
  Speaker 5: of entropy, right like they are emanations of scythus as
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: opposed to the Adra, who I don't know if the
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: opposite of entropy is, but you pulled that quote in
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: your creation myth video about how they ultimately seek the
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: prosperity of men, and so you have you have the
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: entropy of the Deja, you have the Daja worship, which
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: results in things like the Red Mountain, which results in
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: things like the curse that's on the Denmark. It's an
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: interesting note that the story revolves around lor Can, right.
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: It's you have a grasping of divinity, but through because
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: if I remember right, Lorcan is an emanation of cythus,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: whereas cythis itself is absence. And that's kind of that
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: strange contradiction you get into because you have absence, but
• 49:17
  Speaker 5: you're giving it being. But that's kind of so that
• 49:20
  Speaker 5: kind of just doesn't seem to make sense. But I
• 49:22
  Speaker 5: think it's interesting how the grasping of divinity or actually
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: maybe maybe you can do something with this because you're
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: grasping at divinity, but you were simultaneously grasping at absence
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: and that results in enterpy that results in emptiness, that
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: results in curse that results in destruction. And I the
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: way I wasn't thinking about this before, but the way
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: you were phrasing it, of grasping at divinity sounds very
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: identic or adomic in my mind. You have adm reaching Adam,
• 49:53
  Speaker 5: reaching for the fruit, you know, grasping towards something which
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: is not being wilfully given to them. And then the
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: land is cursed and and I mean eventually this happens
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: to his son, but a mark is born and and
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: it marks you all the days that you walk on
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: the earth as you leave an exile from that land
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: because of that land has been trodden.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's that's definitely fair. And it goes
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: along with some things as bringing up and like I said,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: we can't streamline this into here's what the message is
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: or here's what the story is. But I definitely think
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: there's those ideas are at play. And I do think
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you bring up an important point that you know, the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: tribunal grasp that divinity via the heart of Lorcan. They're
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: they're trying to use chaos to achieve order, and in
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: so doing it, they just kind of move everything in
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the direction of chaos. That's that's an interesting point. Now.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know if Ian probably has the lore down better.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can if you can debunk
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: any of what we just said.
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: I had a ten year old that desperately wanted to
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: speak to me, so you're gonna have to give me
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: the rundown really quick.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: You made the right call, right choice. Yeah, uh no,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: we're just saying that, you know, the story of More Winded,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: it's about the grasping of power, grasping after divinity. But
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: especially as they're really reaching forward doesn't belong to them,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: especially relying on the heart of Lorcan, which has chaos
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: sort of built into it. Looking at where Lorcan comes from.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: That really it's like they're trying to grasp at ordered
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: by means of chaos, and in so doing everything ends
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: up being shrouded in darkness.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean even togo step further than that, it's
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: like they're trying to grasp that being through through absence, right, right,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: If we're going to adopts that gnostic monad framework, which
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: which the creation that does seem to be based off of,
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: those are truly the roots, and so you just see
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: the latent, maybe ly in south right term, but just
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: the underlying contradiction in their actions, which result is a disaster.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: You know, the constant will to define yourself versus live
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: out how you were created to be and like, yeah,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: what you're designed to be?
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So something something occurred to something occurred to me, Andrew,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: kind of like when you were kind of like you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: posing your h your your question, I guess, which was
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: there's actually this really there's this there's this interesting uh character,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: and I don't I don't have the I don't have
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: the story, like down pat like everything I know is
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: everything I know is just kind of like you know,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: recorded secondhand or whatever I read on Unofficial Elder Scrolls
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: wiki or you know, something like that. But there's a
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: character there, there's a there's a character in Moro and
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: kind of like with regards to what you were talking
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: about Andrew, which was he's he's an, he's an he's
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: an old imperial man. He's like he's at the ghost Gate.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: And I don't I I don't. I don't know where
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: that is. I don't know. I don't remember where that
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: is exactly. Is that close to the Red Mountain?
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: M hyeah? Yeah, that's what keeps things out or in?
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: So there is so I think I think stagnation is
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: a really good Stagnation is a really good theme I
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: think for morowind So when you talk to this man
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: at this mysterious old man at the ghost Gate, he
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: he's talking about he's talking about the empire in general, right,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: and he he says something, he says something really interesting
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: as an you know, as an empire man, he's kind
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: of disparaging. He's kind of and now he's talking about
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: the empire overall, but it could apply to morowind he's
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: talking about how it's like it's it's the empire itself
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: kind of seems to be on the way out. It's like,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's decaying. It's it's it's it's unchanging,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: it's decaying. The Emperor himself is kind of like know
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: is you know, is an old man who is dying
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: and uh and and this might I think, I I
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: believe this is your real septem the seventh, who is
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: an oblivion. I believe And he says, he says something
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: really interesting. He basically he's he's basically talking about all
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: this stagnation, and he says, maybe it's time for a change.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: He's like, I don't know what kind of change. Like
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: I'm an old guy, like you know, like you know,
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: my you know my you know you know my my
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: my time is common gone, like it's it's it's up,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: you know, it's up. It's up to the young people
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: to figure it out. Now. Basically, you know, maybe maybe
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: we need maybe maybe we need new ideas. I don't know,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: maybe that's not so maybe maybe maybe maybe that would
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: be hard. But then change has never been easy, you know,
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: he said, he says something to that effect. And what's
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: really interesting about this character is he's kind of one
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: of those people where he kind of shows up and
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: then he kind of disappears, and like nobody seems to
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: know who he is or even that he was there
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: at all in the first place. It's kind of like,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: you know, like, you know, like the other characters are
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: like the was nobody at the ghost Gate and uh
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: like this uh like and I was I was kind
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: of like, uh watching and reading about how this guy,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: this guy is very quite possibly like he's very possibly
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: like a Cheazerine, you know, kind of like you know,
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: he'd like you know, like a like an incarnation of
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: lorcn or maybe even like an incarnation of typer Septum.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: You know, who's you know, who's already you know, who's
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: already coming gone, you know, you know back in you
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: know what, uh uh into the into the Second Era
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: beginning of the Third Era, or something like that. But uh,
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: you know and lor lor Con who is basically himself,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: he's kind of like a god of change, right, so
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: that that there seems there seems to be like if
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: there's if there's if there's any hope, if there's any
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: hope to be had in the story. It's kind of
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: like in the in the Change of in the Change
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: of things that are like just kind of like old
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: and dead, and I'm thinking, like I guess I'm thinking
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of like you know, like the Pharisees, right,
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of like the Pharisees and kind of like
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: you know, the the whitewashed tomb metaphor Yeah, uh like
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: in this like you know, in this, in this, in this,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: in this particular like you know context, like you know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: you know, Christ comes and he promises a new kingdom. Now,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: like like that the certainty of optimism isn't isn't there?
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: I don't I don't know. I don't know if that's there,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: but like, you know, but there is hope at least
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: that maybe maybe maybe things can be better, you know,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: like the you know, the you know, the the you know,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: the dark Elves have been like you know, way you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: way too uh like conservative in their uh you know,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: they've got you know, they've you know, they've got They've
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: got there, they've got their Argonian slave trade. They've got
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: the like all of the all of just kind of
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: like the nasty stuff that all the houses are up to.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: You've got like the Morag Tongue right where. You know
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: they you know basically you know they they are they
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: are an official government sanctioned assassins guild, Yeah, basically, and
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: they can you know, they can literally just like you know,
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: they make like a theater of like murdering somebody in
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: the street and then showing, oh, you know, I've got
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: I've got like, I've got a writ. I've got a
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: like I've got a writ. This murder is legal, you know,
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: like it's a very like it's a it's a it's
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: a very it's a very messed up culture. And here
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: we have like this mysterious old man saying maybe it's
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: time for a change.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: That's good. As a side note, the Morag Tongue that
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: they always were a fun affection to join.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're so like the the the the factions
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: and the culture and everything of Moro Wind it's so
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: fascinating and so much fun.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Right and then and then you also have the Illicit
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Assassins Guild, the Kommona Tongue, right, and so that there's
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff going on here. But yeah, I
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: mean to the point that you are bringing up that
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes change is good. Sometimes at least apparent chaos
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: is good. I don't I'm not sure that true chaos
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: is ever good, because you know, it's good in that
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: what is chaotic can be put into order, and that
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: itself is good. And sometimes you need a new order,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: you need a different kind of order, and so yeah,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: so so maybe maybe Morrow it was due for a
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: good reset, and so maybe there's hope on the other side,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: even though you have to go through cataclysm to get there.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And there's definitely plenty of real world application for that
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: we're talking about.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: And anybody, anybody who knows anyone, anybody who knows Elder
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: School's history, knows what happens to Morrow end. After after
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: all this goes down with like the Metior falling and
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: then Red Mountain erupting. It's rough.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's a it's a mega reset, which maybe
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: maybe that is exactly what they needed. Because as you said,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: that they were very comfortable in there in the order
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: that they had established, which was not necessarily a healthy,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: viable order. Yeah, and so there's a lot of very sophisticated,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: sophisticated stuff going on here that on one hand, you know,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: you have the likes of the tribunal having disordered ambitions
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: of themselves, and that has all kinds of results. But
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: it's ultimately through the insertion of the right kind of
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: chaos that we end up moving hopefully in the direction
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: of better order. And so you know, sometimes contextually chaos
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: can be a good thing. Sometimes it can be a
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: bad thing. But and I think that we potentially see
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: both of those sort of about play in this story
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and its aftermath. Well, I'm glad we were able to
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: pull some philosophy out of this. As I said, this
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: is the most difficult one to work with simply because
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: there's so much going on. Whereas say, oblivion, I feel
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: like it's a lot easier to pull something out because
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're basically harrowing hell and you're the good guy.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Just you know, you're they do way there. Yeah, exactly,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: because I will say that when I so when I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: played these games, historically, you know, as a youth, I
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: tend to be a bad guy because or at least
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: anti hero because it's more fun. You know, just kind
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: of do whatever you want to take, whatever's going to
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: make it stronger, Go be a thief, whatever. But you
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: know that's that's really changes. I've been revisiting these games.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I find a lot more fulfilling to be the good
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: guy who's putting things back into order. And I think
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: we're gonna see when we get there that. I think
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: Oblivion really does kind of put that moral framework on display,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: as opposed to Morowind, where you really can you can
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: complete the story pretty morally ambiguous in your own character.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: And so I don't know, I think that when you
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: really do approach it, like I'm trying to to make
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: things better, I think that there's a lot of sphisticated
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: stuff you can navigate, but definitely doesn't necessarily push you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: in that direction. So how do you guys usually approach
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: these games? Do you usually play the hero, villain anti hero?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: What's your go to?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: All roads lead to stellth Archer.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's often true, especially so with Oblivion and Skyrim. Now,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I do think that in Morowind that the magic system
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: can easily get so overpowered that that's potentially a better
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: way to go. But definitely for Skyrim, yes, that's always
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: where that.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Leads magic and a Moro Wind and Oblivion both and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: more so in Moro Wind. But in both of those
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: games it's it's so so broken. So like I looked
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: up a I basically looked up basically a formula in
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: Oblivion for a one shot kill spell, and it's like
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: it's it's really it's really convoluted because basically with every cast,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: you're doing like, okay, you're doing your elemental damage, then
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: you're doing your weakness to that damage, then your weakness
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: to magic, and that stacks as like double and then
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: but then you also need to you need to drain magic,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: drain magica on yourself and fortify magica on yourself at
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: the same time, and it creates a spell that the
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: cost is it's too it's too expensive to actually cast.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: But the combination of drain on self and fortify on
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: self at the same time does something crazy with the math,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: where like with every cast, if the spell makes contact,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: it just gives you like more and more and more
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: like magica into like thousands of points, but because the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: spell itself is so expensive, if you miss it will
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: actually send you into a deficit in the thousands of points.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: And then there's no there's no there, there's no amount
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: of drinking restore magica that will bring it back fast enough,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: while the zivilar kind of beating your face. So it's
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: it's it's uh, it's definitely it's it's it's crazy fun.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: But it's a two edged sword.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Right, high RISKI reward. Yeah, And and so I suppose
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: that's probably why they cut spellcrafting from Skyrim, because it
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: can so easily break the system.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they went in, they went in the complete.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: I always got so far into the game, and then
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: like went in and created a mod that had some
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: item with a one hundred percent chameleon on it, and.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so there's actually there's actually a lot of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: hacks for that sort of thing. So I realized, with
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: the spell crafting and oblivion, you don't need you don't
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: need like a chameleon spell that lasts thirty thirty seconds
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: or sixty seconds or you know whatever. Most of what
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: you're trying to do when it comes to like pickpocketing
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: or you know, whatever, like you know, but time freezes
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: when you're doing that sort of thing. So I have
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: like a one chameleon for six seconds m h, super
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: and you know, so super cheap to cast, and you
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: can just exploit it. Like it's just it's just like
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: there are just so many ways to exploit it and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: break it. And then Skyrim just like went the complete
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: opposite way and made magic actually magic and Skyrim in
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: particular is actually like mathematically like it's so it's so useless.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: It doesn't actually scale with enemies and enemy damage output
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: or your own level like they they they they they
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: they overtuned it for Skyrim.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Depends on if you flip back and forth between alchemy
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: and enchanting, and then you just kind of feed off
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: the the math and the game just kind of min
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: max stuff and eventually you're making like crazy potions that
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: give you high enchanting skill.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: That yeah, they they they nerve the alchemy and Skyrim too,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: but they're there are absolutely exploits that you could still
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: do to do that at what you were kind of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: what you're talking about for.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, it's kind of interesting how they did that.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: They nerved magic and then you know, build up your
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: enchantment and smithing and alchemy, and you still kind of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: get to the same point, just a different mechanic. Obviously,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: we'll continue to talk about morrowin can you talk about
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: other themes as they all build on each other and interrelate.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: Next time, we'll be focusing on tribunal, Tribunal and blood moon,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: right and so sorry Lore, and also I think it'll
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: be fun to hone in on some werewolf stuff. So
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: that's what's on the agenda for next time. I feel
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: free to hang around the discord throughout the week and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: otherwise I'll hopefully see you then.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you, thank you, thank you.