Skyrim EP51: The Peace Talks Were Successful!

By Shamus Posted Friday Jul 4, 2014

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 100 comments


Link (YouTube)

“So Catburt, even though the dragon Parthanblarg has lived in Skyrim for thousands of years without causing trouble, and even though he’s been indispensable in our efforts to save the world, and even though he’s been pretty trusting of us so far, he needs to die. And even though you’re nominally his friend and we’ve been retconned as ‘dragon hunters’, we’re asking YOU to do it.”

It is shocking how quickly this game will shift between great ambition and utter stupidity. Without even noticing. Without even pausing for a breath.

I can’t even wrap my head around how silly it is to have all of the great leaders of Skyrim hike to and from the mountaintop, with no escort, during wartime, all at once, through bears and trolls and allegedly bad weather, on foot. Frankly, I kind of think the Thalmor blew it here. Just one assassination would have caused the whole thing to backfire and make the war that much bloodier.

A few weeks ago we were talking about our favorite seasons of Spoiler Warning. For the record: This is my new favorite episode. Especially the end.

Catburt is a horrible son of a bitch, and I love him for it. He is absolutely the hero Skyrim deserves.

 


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100 thoughts on “Skyrim EP51: The Peace Talks Were Successful!

  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Jarls worst fear:Waking up next to a hairy pussy.

    1. DIN aDN says:

      That would explain why there’s that woman who every time I go to whiterun insinuates every time I go to whiterun that her husband is sleeping with the jarl. Every time I go to whiterun.
      ‘If you want to know where my husband is, you should check the jarl’s backside. I hear that’s where he’s been stuffing himself these days’

      You know, for some reason that particular bit of NPC chatter really throws me. I’d understand if maybe she had a few more and it was like ‘Oh, OK, this lady is just really into sharing her private life with random strangers; takes all sorts I guess’, but no, it’s just the one line.

      I suppose it’s like what – I think Rutskarn? – was talking about last episode? Where you have just these few little orphaned bits of non-quest related, non-lore flavour floating around in the world, and because of the scarcity of them it’s jarring to come across.

      Also, that is the line, isn’t it? I’ve not been mishearing something more congruous with the rest of the game?

      1. Friend of Dragons says:

        I’m fairly certain it’s intended to be interpreted as “he’s being a kiss-ass”, not “he’s having gay sex.”

        Because the second one would actually be something we haven’t all heard a thousand times before, so it can’t be right.

        1. Jokerman says:

          I never had any doubt she was just calling him a kiss ass… I actually find it quite funny that someone would interpret it to mean gay sex…

          1. Dragomok says:

            I guess some of us spend too much time around webcomics, LGBT blogs and tumblr.

            1. Sleeping Dragon says:

              And to be honest it would be a curious bit of trivia.

      2. Given the rest of Skyrim, the line is jarring to me mostly because it isn’t a quest hook to fix Ahlam & Nazeem’s marriage. It’s also amusing that the two things we’re constantly told about Nazeem through chatter are his obsession with the Cloud District and his ownership of Chillfurrow Farm, but he never visits either. The latter, at least, is a bug according to UESP.

        Digression: I realized the oddities of Nazeem’s patterns because my current character is a psychotic Redguard. He’s built an elaborate personal myth around surviving Helgen after wisecracking to Hadvar that his name was Cyrus. Actually being Dovahkiin reinforced Cyrus’ delusions to the point that he’s currently stalking Nazeem in preparation for murdering him on 5th of Frost Fall (to propitiate Divad the Singer, while providing an example for all true sons and daughters of Hammerfell). At least, that’s my in-character / lore-based justification for staying my bound sword until I’ve leveled enchanting sufficiently to turn Nazeem into a reasonably sweet ring. Thanks, Mumbles!

        (It’s entirely possible to amuse yourself with “roleplaying” in Skyrim as long as you don’t mind that the game is, at best, indifferent to the concept….)

        1. yeti434 says:

          It would have been cool to have seen the negotiation as the final mission to the civil war quest.

          Anyways, I’ve said it a few times, but I don’t like the idea of “main” quests in these games. Hypothetically, I’d like to keep the two factions, but then chop them up into various subfactions. There is no ranking system in either. You do quests for one dude, which locks out another quest. However, you don’t have to just go imperial or stormcloak the whole time.

          Anyways, your actions serve to escalate things, and after so many quests have been done, the negotiation triggers. There are four ways this can go: you can negotiate some sort of compromise between the two factions. If that happens then some of the other quests in the case lock out. The games economy improves, there are no longer battles, etc…

          You can side with the Imperials or the Nords. Siding with the imperials causes them to take alot more land, improves the economy in their towns, but hurts the nords. Visa versa for the other faction.

          You can also fail, causing the war to escalate on both sides. There are many, many more random conflicts on both sides and the economy worsens for both factions, but more quests open up on both sides that are war related.

      3. Dirigible says:

        “Stuck to” not “Stuffing” as in “Being an ass-kisser” not “fornicating”

        1. DIN aDN says:

          *Mondo facepalm* Wow, whoops. That makes a lot more sense.

  2. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Was Mumbles missing from this batch because she was GOING MAD AND EATING HER CREW in the sunless sea?

  3. Thomas says:

    Rather than this ridiculous 2-day truce thing, this is how it should go. You have both the sides civil war quests and you have the main quests. After a certain point in the main quest you put both sides in a position where they’re willing to negotiate a _permanent_ peace treaty and you can trigger this whenever you want (but you have to do it to advance the main quest to Alduin).

    It also can be triggered if you’ve advanced either civil war faction quest sufficiently.

    Then once you do gather everyone to a table, the number of concessions made and that you have influence over depend on how far you’ve gone along each ones quest line. If you’ve completed the Stormcloaks then you can demand complete surrender from the Imperials. If you’ve done only half the Stormcloak quests then you can get a couple of towns, some rights about worshipping etc

    If you haven’t done any civil war quests then it triggers a much shorter scene where it’s only an uneasy two day truce.

    I think this might make the civil war questlines feel a lot more dynamic, it would entwine them with the main quest more (whilst still not forcing the player to do one or the other) and it would make this scene a lot more rewarding.

    As it is the Dragonborn should be considering not slaying the dragons just to drag out the truce longer

    1. Jake Taylor says:

      Here’s the problem with that sort of thing: it could be done, in a much smaller game than this. A game the size of Skyrim already requires five years, a sizable team, and a very large budget.

      In order to do a game this large, they have to cut a lot. There are a ton of ideas they had that weren’t put in the game (to the point where giving the Jarl of Whiterun a crystal throne was cut because it would require resources spent on a single item that they couldn’t reuse).

      So more complicated ideas might sound better or more interesting, but it would be done in place of something else in the game. Which means it comes down to what game you’re looking to make.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        What about new vegas?It too is a vast game,it too had to throw out a bunch of ideas they had(vehicles,for example),yet the story is much tighter there and the quest resolutions are much more satisfying.So the problem here is not one of scale,but of attempting more than they could handle.

        1. Viggih says:

          Yes, and Obsidian cranked that game out in 18 months

          (which is insane when you think about the mountain of content in it)

          1. Jokerman says:

            Although at the cost of being incredibly rough at launch…

            1. Humanoid says:

              As opposed to the bulletproof glitch-free product that was Skyrim.

              1. Jokerman says:

                Bethesda suck… But i would say Skyrim was more stable.

        2. Klay F. says:

          As much as I love New Vegas, I’m willing to bet the world was as cohesive as it was precisely because the vast majority of the legwork was already done. A the engine work was already complete. A very large amount of the static texture and mesh work was also already done. The NPC/PC skeletons, meshes, textures, and animations were carried over wholesale.

          That is not to say they didn’t do any work, I’m just saying they had a significant head start.

          Obviously most of that doesn’t apply to the DLCs which were pretty much completely Obsidian for good or ill.

      2. Thomas says:

        I don’t think it would be that hard, you only need one or two lines and they don’t need to have affect any quests or branch off after this moment.

        They basically have a similar level of variety here already, it’s just not tied into anything else in a meaningful way. All you need to do is let this conversation happen at lots of opportunities and gate some of the choices in it.

        In fact since this conversation only appears if you haven’t done either civil war quest line, and they already have the endings to both quest lines in the game, my version might involve less work than they’ve done here. I’m talking one branching ending, compared to their 3 entirely separate versions of events

      3. Sleeping Dragon says:

        I guess that really depends on where your priorties lie, with Skyrim it feels like they were much more with the sandbox than they were with the main quest. Which I think is one of the differences that annoy fans of Morrowind, where the game world felt much more subservient to the main storyline. A more immersive, non-linear civil war is mostly a matter of scripting*, the only outright necessary asset would be voiced lines.

        *Not saying making large-scale scripting is easy, especially when it would have to affect so many other variable in the world. There are enough broken scripts and quests in these games and any large scale TES/FO modder can probably share many a tale of dealing with a “why doesn’t this work?!” situation after they only fiddled with something seemingly unrelated.

  4. Steve C says:

    Josh was correct, (whoa! crazy) yes there was a man falling from the sky soon as he exited the building. It’s at 6:42.

    1. lucky7 says:

      Morrowind reference perhaps?

      1. hborrgg says:

        I think that reference is supposed to be in solstheim.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        The jumping guy is so cool.He gives you a way to traverse a huge part of the map practically in the very beginning.Though you have only one use of that method at that point.I wish skyrim had such craziness.

        1. guy says:

          I fondly remember my first encounter with that guy.

          *sees a guy fall from the sky*
          Well, huh, what was that about? Guess I’ll go check the corpse.
          *Reads note, looks at scrolls*
          *saves game*

          The subsequent chain of events went almost exactly as I’d anticipated.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            My first encounter with him ended somewhat successfully.I properly guessed that I needed all three to survive,so I ended up doing two jumps and surviving.Unfortunately,I ended up in the middle of nowhere,not knowing where to go,so I promptly died afterwards.

          2. Kalil says:

            He once landed on me.
            That game had physics deaths.
            I died.

        2. The Rocketeer says:

          Three, if you can cast a levitate or slowfall spell of any strength and duration.

      3. Humanoid says:

        I’ve encountered his body a few times but have never actually seen anyone falling. Maybe it’s the scripting but in all likelihood isn’t just me not paying attention. If not reading things on the internet, I wouldn’t have ever known the actual falling was a thing, as opposed to being an implied event.

    2. hborrgg says:

      Maybe they caught Tulius just after he started fast traveling?

  5. hborrgg says:

    So, even though it’s neat that the game lets you have a peace conference I can’t help like feel like it is the absolute worst possible conclusion for the civil war questline. In addition to the weirdness of randomly swapping territories and creating border-gore, it’s basically giving the Thalmor exactly what they want, the Empire remains weakened and Skyrim remains divided.

    1. Raygereio says:

      This does not stop the Civil War questline. It just puts it on hold.
      Arngeir was talking about peace and everything, but sides just agreed to a temporary truce until the Dragonborn has dealt with the dragon business.

      After you finish the main quest you can resume the Civil War questline.

      1. Thomas says:

        They’re literally agreed territory swaps just so that they’d stop fighting for one or two days whilst someone kills a dragon.

        1. Thomas says:

          It makes me wonder if this scene was originally written to be put at a different part of the game, or for different reasons and they tried to cram it in here after changes.

          Then again, randomly choosing to obsess over detail in one small part of the game without consideration to everything else is exactly how the rest of Skyrim seemed to be made

        2. Sleeping Dragon says:

          It is pretty jarring. I also didn’t like how the scene assumed that the PC is this neutral party who respects both sides and whose opinions are impartial. I haven’t really done the peace talks options before but I assume this perspective doesn’t change no matter what you did before?

          Also, is it possible to unlock more options in that “let’s trade cities” dialogue with something that Josh hasn’t done or is it literally you having a single option dialogue choice?

          1. Thomas says:

            Someone commented that there’s another city you can offer (beginning with f?) that’s much more valuable than the one Josh offered. He couldn’t offer it this time because he’d already conquered it for that side.

  6. Thearpox says:

    Before the season ends, I just have to say that after watching the series, Jenassa has become by far my favorite NPC. And actually from any game the Spoiler Warning played aside from The Walking Dead. Second only to Catbert himself. She just… complements him so well, with the stupid AI actually working in her favor.

    As the crew constantly remarks, it’s almost like she has some sort of awareness of what’s happening. And her being extremely aggressive and having many unique lines doesn’t hurt either.

    1. Doomcat says:

      Agreed, if I ever do another skyrim playthrough I’m going to find Jenassa and have her travel with me…though I doubt she could live up to the expectations this spoiler warning season has put into my head.

      1. Tizzy says:

        She can make the forsworn headdress work. Is there any higher praise possible?

    2. Torsten says:

      Jenassa is becoming my favorite NPC too because of this season. She apparently is one of the few NPCs in the game that tends to keep fighting on her own even after the player has sheathed their weapons.

      I really liked Rikke during this meeting also, her sarcastic comments were really adding to the atmosphere. And it’s great to watch her just coolly walk away while Tullius gets beaten by Reginald.

  7. Neil W says:

    Chris could call the show they make after Shamus closes Spoiler Warning down “Super Bunny Hop”. That’s a good name for a show.

    1. ET says:

      If Josh was at the helm, they’d have to upgrade the name to Ultra Bunny Hop!

    2. Cinebeast says:

      I see what you did there.

  8. Its a well known fact that all dragons are ladies (or at least non-men). Anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Also i think asexual was the wrong word to use. Agender would be more appropriate i think? I’m not sure what he was trying to say there.

    1. ET says:

      Maybe nonsexual? How do dragons reproduce in the lore, anyways? Eggs? Budding?

      1. The Rocketeer says:

        Asexual is the right term; dragons don’t reproduce at all. They seem to have “shown up” near/before the beginning of time, and they don’t age. Once Catbert kills them all, they’ll just be gone.

        1. Humanoid says:

          Until the games industry has another “dragons are cool” phase at which they spontaneously reappear.

          1. Alexander The 1st says:

            They just get sent forward in time from the point onwards after Catbert reads the Elder Scroll for the first time.

  9. Gruhunchously says:

    Catbert: [after Summoning Balgruuf to a meeting, handing his land to his enemy, beating him within an inch of his life and throwing him off a mountain] “I did warn you not to trust me.”

    1. Sydney says:

      What Catbert did wasn’t even nearly harsh enough to warrant that line.

  10. yeti434 says:

    Hahaha, this episodes sums up everything that was awesome about Skyrim. I don’t think I’ve seen the crew have this much fun ever.

    Also, as far as nobles walking instead of riding horses, Shamus, they’re doing the Monty Python thing. If you kill that drow body guard you can loot coconuts.

    Actually, for now on when Catburt is playing, I am going to pretend that Jenessa is behind him with two coconuts playing horse noises on coconuts.

  11. MichaelGC says:

    Wow, all the NPCs were just proper ready to bail out of that meeting. It was like the start of the All-Tamriel Ultimate Musical Chairs Championship. Or something.

    I’ve not seen that scene myself, and I’m sure it’s different if you’re actually playing and/or following along, but (just as a visual background; not referring to the commentary aspect at all) it’s probably not a good sign when you’re yearning for some default-UI inventory management to liven things up.

    Actually I rather enjoy the inventory management. I like trying (& failing) to keep track. I’ll … I’ll get me coat.

  12. At about 6:20 Chris makes a interesting statement about female dragons.

    Which made be realize another thing.

    Why the heck are there no female creatures?
    Horses, Wolfs, Dogs, those things out near the cost that I can’t recall the name of right now, foxes, deer and many many more.

    With most female creatures you do not have to do anything, the male creature can have a sign of a package/equipment, there would be no issues keeping it even PG13 in case that is a hangup for anyone.

    Except for some male/female animals where horns may or may not be present the main difference is just like a few polygons (by few I mean less than 10) or just a simple alternate texture.

    Sure the majority of people would probably not (consciously notice), but a large enough amount of players wold notice it for the extra work to be worth it in my opinion.

    Skyrim looks pretty darn awesome otherwise so that part is a tad odd.

    How is the situation in GTA 5? (still waiting for the PC release here)
    How is it with animals there? Do they have genders at all?

    Fallout: New Vegas did have gendered creatures, if I recall correctly.

    1. ET says:

      “those things out near the coast”
      You mean walruses? :P I’ve never actually seen one in my game, so I don’t know what the in-universe name is for them.

      I totally agree with the weirdness of no female animals. The deer, elk, goats, etc were all males, or I’m mis-remembering. I definitely remember horns, but no heads without horns. Screenshots and 3D models on the wiki seem to confirm this. Such lazy artists! Enough time to model women, boys, and girls, but not female animals? You jerks! :P

      1. Phantos says:

        “But it would take 80,000 hours to code a female deer!”

        -Some knob from Ubisoft.

      2. Sabrdance (MatthewH) says:

        Um… do ya’ll make a habit of sexing your kills in the wilderness? Are there notable morphological differences between male and female wolves and foxes (I mean besides size, which I think we can give the game a pass on)?

        There are female elk -no horns and smaller size. You’ll occasionally see them walking with a male and possibly a calf. And on Solstheim, the Netches come in pods of one male, one female, and one or more calves.

        I think the horse you buy at Windhelm is said to be a female.

        1. straymute says:

          In a weird way this does show that the time and effort put into gendered animals was basically wasted. The player isn’t breeding animals or anything so even the people who would care don’t tend to notice.

          1. Sure only a minority notices, but if you ignore it, why not ignore other things…
            Why bother with facial design, heck skip character creation you are in armor all the time anyway.
            Why bother with romances or relationships you only run in dungeons killing anyway.
            Suddenly you have thrown away all that stuff only the few like, but if you remove all minorities you end up with a bland generic dull sameness, a generic shooter almost with nothing memorable about it.

            The fact that Sabrdance above noticed something I hadn’t just shows there is probably even more to explore and see in Skyrim.

            Heck, Rutskarn never experienced the peace meeting, again something that could easily have been left out of the game, but the fact it was there added that much more color/texture to world’s (Skyrim) story.

            One can also infer that it was possible not the first time such a meetin had took place, perhaps in the past the Jarls did meet there around the table to settle disputes?

        2. “I think the horse you buy at Windhelm is said to be a female.” but does it look any different from a male one?

          As to the Elks and Netches I’ll have to remember to check that if I play Skyrim again.

          “do ya'll make a habit of sexing your kills in the wilderness?”
          Not normally no, but just as an example, if I where to see a pig outside a farm and I’d see like a dozen nipples I’d go, “ah, a female pig”.

          It’s purely non-essential to any story or plot but it gives a lot of color to the world.

          Or if you see creatures that you have never seen before (fantasy creatures) and there is there seems to be a difference you can infer from that little visual clue that maybe those are females or those are males (sometimes size is reversed too as to what one might expect).

          With wolfs one might infer that a large + several small ones is a female with her cubs and she could get protective and dangerous.
          While several large ones are most likely a pack of males hunting.
          (I’m sure I got some behaviors wrong there but).

          The Draugr for example they seem to have genders (difficult to see at time with those dried out husks).
          Then again you got those giants which is um either male only or genderless. (or did anyone notice female giants?)

    2. The Rocketeer says:

      New Vegas had Deathclaw Mothers and Alpha Males, but other than that I don’t think you ever ran into explicitly male or female creatures. The only difference between any of the models within the same creature type seems to be size.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        and stats.

        There is a creature mod for FO3 called Marts Mutant Mod, I think there may be a FO:NV version too. Right now it does a lot of stuff, including altering the AI and adding new types if mobs, but when I first installed it it mainly fiddled with wildlife by throwing in some randomness. Creatures had variance in size and a, somewhat related, variance in stats (for example if a creature was bigger it had higher strength and endurance for example, but it would also roll between having +/-1 to those stats, as did every other of that species). One of the first things I encountered after leaving the vault was a pack of molerats (I may have had spawns increased in some manner) one of which, by some twist of the RNG I pressume, was significantly bigger while the others were smaller than the average. The usual fight, kill, loot followed but the world felt way more immersive and awesome because the moment I saw them I imagined it was an actual pack of a parent and young. The funny thing is that at that point the mod was pretty much script, no assets were added, but it improved the game experience a great deal, someone just had to think about it.

        1. BioWare got some flak for odd lack of alien females, they did rectify this by female Krogans and the awesome genophage story arc though. And we did get to see a female Turian eventually.

          So yeah genders to add a lot sometimes helps you understand a race even.
          And sometimes the lack of a gender helps you understand something (a species that reproduces asexualy or a species that is artificial or otherwise created for example).

  13. Phantos says:

    The only reason I can forgive that senseless “KILL CHARLES MARTINET DRAGON BECAUSE REASONS” thing is because if you go up to talk to him after, he says the best line in the game.

    Maybe that’s why Parthanaax is one of the few residents of Skyrim I gave a rat’s about.

    1. Nyctef says:

      Interestingly, if you talk to old Parthy after beating Alduin, he makes it clear that he’s now pretty much the most highly-ranked dragon and isn’t going to hang around having afternoon tea with the Greybeards anymore.

      It’s a shame, really, since if they’d brought it up before then they could have made his character a bit more ambiguous and made the choice to kill him or not a lot more meaningful.

    2. Adam says:

      Out of curiosity, which line are you referring to? I didn’t find the dialogue of anyone even tangentially connected to the main quest to be terribly compelling.

      1. Dovius says:

        It’s after you actually mention to him that the Blades want you to kill him. He actually notes that the Blades have a point in their reasoning (Dragons are tyrannical and power-hungry by nature, so even Paarthurnax can’t be trusted despite his whole Way of the Voice schtick) and are wise to fear him in a certain capacity. However, he asks you a simple question in return:

        “What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”

        1. One could also infer that he has placed his fate in your hands (the Dragonborn) as a ultimate show of his devotion to his current path.
          One can also infer that he knows the Dragonborn could kill him fairly easily if he ever stepped out of line.

          By the end of main story arc the Dragonborn is basically a king of the dragons, keeping them essentially all in check.

  14. Tizzy says:

    Now I can’t shake the image of Catbert curled up on Baalgruf’s chest and purring louldy throughout the night. Well, it’s bound to warm up the Jarl…

    1. Jokerman says:

      Not after the night he has had… i bet he slept like a baby.

  15. The Rocketeer says:

    I never saw any justification to kill Paarthurnax, either; frankly, I thought the Blades were more likely to turn on me than Paarthurnax was to turn on anybody at all.

    Even beyond in-universe considerations, why would you ever pick the Blades over Paarthurnax? On one hand, I have my super best dragon pal, and on the other I have… Delphine and Esbern. That’s no choice at all.

    1. newdarkcloud says:

      Esburn can give you a potion that temporarily boosts damage output against dragons. Further, you can get Dragonbane without “stealing” it.

      Aside from those two things, I can’t think of any benefits to killing Parthie. Even then, these benefits aren’t the great.

      1. Disc says:

        There’s the benefit of one less dragon potentially threatening the world, but that only makes sense in a very narrow strip at the extreme end of pragmatism and even then only if you try to take the world he’s in seriously.

    2. Tizzy says:

      I don’t know… I was against killing Parthycat, but I felt really bad letting down the blades. They seemed to be the only ones who knew what to do with dragons.

      Of course, this was early in my first playthrough, before I’d realized that this game was simply trying to make me hate everyone. Mission accomplished, writers….

      1. The Rocketeer says:

        Yeah, that’s the thing: the Blades are the only ones who treat the dragons with the proper urgency, but only because everyone else is stupid. Everyone else seems to think it’s a party trick their enemies are pulling to spite them. Even the Thalmor!

        1. Ledel says:

          It’s even worse if you remember the episode where a troop of imperial soldiers were attacked by a dragon right in front of Rikke. Combine that Ulfric seeing Alduin at the start of the game and you have two high ranking NPCs who have seen dragons but refuse to consider them a threat.

    3. Dovius says:

      Honestly, I’d say that the best mod for Skyrim is the one that allows you to pull rank on Delphine and Esbern when they ask you to kill Paarthurnax to keep their aid, to the point of yelling at them so hard to stop being a bunch of jackasses that Skyhaven Temple starts shaking from the power of your Thu’um.

      1. IFS says:

        What is the name of this mod? I’ve only recently acquired Skyrim for PC so I’ve been trying to compile a list of mods to try out.

        1. Kalil says:

          The Paarthurnax Dilemma, iirc.

    4. I agree, the Blades seemed as the lesser choice, they where stuck in their old ways and desired only revenge instead of looking forward.
      Don’t they practically say they’d refuse to help you and see the world burn unless you kill him?
      If you the Dragonborn is tasked to save the world, why would you want to have anything to do with the blades if they ignore the world.
      If that sidequest popped up at the end of the main story arch it would fit better since the threat of Alduin is now gone.

  16. Tizzy says:

    At the council’s exit, I kept thinking the participants were trying to figure out how many taxis they would need to bring up there, the logistic of sharing a ride to the bottom of the mountain, and how much it would cost per person.

    1. Humanoid says:

      There are probably a bunch of ways to solve the issue more elegantly, sure, but I’m glad that at least in the Elder Scrolls universe, teleportation magic isn’t a thing. Indeed I think it shouldn’t be a thing in any RPG world.

      1. Viktor says:

        Teleportation magic is definitely a thing in the TES universe, it’s just that the recent games have ignored it. Likely for the same reason they’ve ignored Levitation, because it means players have some control over how they progress through an area and can deal with encounters in ways that aren’t binary win/loss states.

        1. Humanoid says:

          Hmm, well all the same I’m glad they had the restraint to not have NPCs abuse it to deliver exposition and explain why anyone can be anywhere at a given time. Playing by the same rules and all that.

          1. guy says:

            DA 2 is a huge offender in that regard. There’s this book about things that are impossible to do with magic, and it lists teleportation as one, but any random mook enemy wizard teleports around the battlefield at whim. The official explanation is something like they just run around really fast, but it still offends me. If they wanted the teleportation mechanic so bad they could have just said tactical teleportation works but has range limits.

            1. IFS says:

              Yeah that bugged me too, but I reconciled it that Rogues can do the same thing with some of their abilities so its not magic just Varric exaggerating. (Varric exaggerating actually solves a number of minor issues, though certainly not all of DA2’s flaws).

          2. DIN aDN says:

            *suddenly, time stops and the room fills with glowy particle effects*

            OK fine, that was one NPC and wasn’t strictly teleportation, but still :P

          3. Kalil says:

            “I'm glad they had the restraint to not have NPCs abuse it to deliver exposition”
            Except for that one guy in the Winterhold College quest…

        2. Adam says:

          It’s not that. (Well, it’s not ONLY that.) They’ve gone on the record as saying they had to cut it because of the change they made in their approach to cities going from Morrowind to Oblivion onward. Specifically, the cities are all walled off now so they can be treated as a separate zone in the game engine. You don’t have to worry about anyone in the town because as far as the engine’s concerned they’re in another world. Contrast with Morrowind, where each city’s boundary is organic, like the real world. There are walled cities, but they’re built that way because the developers wanted them to be, not because that’s all the engine can support. And more importantly, there’s no loading screen gap between the inside of those walled cities and the outside.

          1. James Porter says:

            If you have been following Skywind, this is actually a big debate that they have been having. A lot of people want all the cities to be open, like balmora. But a lot of their tech guys are saying thats basically impossible, and they are gonna have to close at least a couple areas, like balmora.
            Then came in the issue of levitation, which is being put back in. The solution they seem to have come up with(unless they have open cities) is that everything above the walls will essentially work like the caves in skyrim, where just going up to it causes the level load.

            1. guy says:

              Yeah, a loading box is definitely the way to go, although it could go a bit funky if you’re running from a flying enemy over a city.

  17. Neko says:

    As part of the Civil War questline, you can replace the Jarl of Whiterun, right? I suspect that’s why his bed isn’t owned – it might have been too much effort to code up the transfer of property. Maybe. It might just be owned by a faction and Catbert has risen up the ranks sufficiently.

    1. Jokerman says:

      Does it have to be transferred? Cant you just let both Jarls sleep in it and set it to “not for catburt” Im sure that is what they do with married NPCs….

  18. hborrgg says:

    So, I wasn’t really paying attention. How did the Peace talks end? who owns what now?

    1. MichaelGC says:

      From what I’ve managed to piece together:

      -Catbert owns a horse, although no one is quite sure why or how.

      -The Jarl doesn’t own his own bed.

      -Something something Markarth.

      There were a few other incidentals that I couldn’t quite fathom out, but I think these are the major plot-critical aspects.

      1. James Porter says:

        They kept Markarth right? Cause that would have been perfect to give Markarth over.
        Stormcloaks all march into town, only to find dead bodies everywhere, covered in clawmarks, everything is in ruin, and the few guards still there have gone full totalitarian, arresting anyone with so much a single septim’s bounty.

      2. guy says:

        Come to think of it, has anyone ever figured out the horse? The only thing I can figure is that he inherited it from that guy he murdered, so it teleports to him when he fast travels but never got the flag for “Is player’s horse” set quite right and it paths back to the stable automatically.

        1. IFS says:

          Yeah the inheritance theory is my guess too, I think I suggested it in the comments of another vid a while back even. Not sure anything else makes sense, unless the horse is a secret quest reward for something they did in Markarth.

  19. Henson says:

    This may be your favorite episode of Spoiler Warning, Shamus, but the best episode is most definitely The King’s Speech. The timing in that twenty or so minutes is uncanny.

  20. Ramsus says:

    At the end there I was laughing so hard I cried. Thanks guys.

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