Malygris on 25/6/2006 at 14:33
Wherein we discuss the Mage Guild line of quests, including many spoilers about every part of it, but not about anything else in the game, so you've been warned - and do keep in mind that I haven't completed the game yet (I'm actually not very far at all into the main plot), so make no assumptions about what I know and, more importantly, don't know.
Anyway.
[SPOILER]Mannimarco, the King of Worms, dread bad guy from Daggerfall, centuries old, elevated to godhood in the Second Era (as I recall), basically the ultimate bad-ass bogeyman, and in my ultimate fight with him I put him down with about a half-dozen ebony arrows. No stealth shit, either; I walked right up to him, we had our chit-chat, and then a face-to-face throwdown in which I kicked his ass far more quickly and cleanly than I ever should have. I had more trouble with some of his undead guardians than I did with the Man Himself.
So the question, although it's not really a question, is, wtf? At first I assumed it was a ruse, that this wasn't really the King of Worms but instead a doppleganger of some sort, a lesser being in disguise serving to distract me while the real deal was off perpetrating his unholy eeeeeeeeeevil elsewhere in the land. But no, the quest line has ended, I've become Arch-Mage of the guild, and happiness and sunshine have returned to Cyrodiil and our little wizards club.
UNLESS, this was never really Mannimarco at all, but some sort of Doombot-type clone set loose upon Cyrodiil, intentionally or otherwise, while KW remains safely ensconced in the Wrothgarian Mountains. And I realize there's absolutely no basis for such a theory, not a single hint given that the Mannimarco we've all greased was anything but the real Mannimarco - except for the fact that he was such an utter bitch-ass chump. Random encounters with bears in the forest present much tougher fights than Manny did, which just doesn't make any sense at all if he was the real thing.
I expect the explanation will be put forth that random encounter creatures are scaled to the player's level (the tougher you get, the tougher they get), while Mannimarco's level and skills are fixed, which could very well be the case. But it's not like I'm some kind of level-50 goon wearing 300 pounds of armor and swords. I'm a level-20 stealth guy with a bow and a dagger and a set of mixed light armor, most of which I found many levels ago. I'm a great killer but not much of a fighter. If this is just a case of a fixed-level character being grossly out-levelled by the player, then based on the ease with which I put him down, somebody at Bethesda has grossly misjudged the Worm King's rank and power within the Elder Scrolls mythos.
Did anyone else have the same feeling? Any ideas or thoughts on the situation, what happened, or what went wrong? Or is it really all just a ruse, and later on in the game after I've forgotten all about it the real Worm King is going to show up and say HAY HOW'S IT GOING HA HA ABOUT THAT OTHER GUY JUST KIDDING AROUND THERE BUT NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO BEND OVER AND SQUEAL LIKE A PIGGIE BECAUSE DADDY'S HOME AND BOY HE'S PISSED. (If that's the case, I don't really want to hear about it.) Surely I can't be the only one to come out of this feeling like :weird: .
[/SPOILER]
PeeperStorm on 25/6/2006 at 16:26
You can fanwank any in-game explanation for it that you want, but I think the real story is that the dude that you're talking about is a victim of Bethesda's philosophy of "be able to complete any Oblivion quest at any character level". In other words, they had to make him a pushover. Disappointing, especially considering that you can find a book in the game [SPOILER]that describes him exactly the way you remember him from Daggerfall.[/SPOILER]
RyushiBlade on 25/6/2006 at 21:58
Fanwank. *snickers*
I, too, was disappointed. Even as a fellow mage with 100% weakness to magicka, I found him to be no trouble at all. You'd think they'd take the time to atleast make him resistant to poison, paralysis, and silence, just to make him a teensy-bit harder. I just had to cast a 12 second silence spell and alternate between fireballs and paralyze.
As revenge, I did what I assume most others did: stripped off his clothes and reanimated him with his own staff.
PeeperStorm on 26/6/2006 at 00:12
Quote:
Fanwank. *snickers*
From Wikipedia:
Quote:
A fanwank is an attempt by fans of a work of fiction to explain or justify plot holes or continuity errors, often through convoluted contrivances. The term is used both as a verb and a noun; the practice is sometimes known as fanwankery. It is disparaging, equating the activity with the solitary pleasure of masturbation ("wanking" in British slang). A great deal of fanwanking is based on the supposed premise that the original author of the work knew of the apparent plot hole and chose not to clarify or explain them. The fanwank is then a supposed "uncovering" of the hidden reasoning of the author.
So there.:cheeky:
Malygris on 27/6/2006 at 06:41
But I'm not looking for fanwanking here. I'm asking for an explanation, and assuming one isn't forthcoming (except for the obvious, which is to say, it's a design fuckup), offering criticism for what is a thoroughly disappointing plot conclusion, as well as a certain degree of shock that a character so well-established as being a major power in Tamriel could be so completely watered down. Everything was cool up to that point, but the ultimate conclusion was such an utter let-down that the whole thing is tainted.
And yes, I'm pretty sure everyone [SPOILER]used his staff to revive him. It's the first thing I did.[/SPOILER]
Pisces on 27/6/2006 at 09:50
[SPOILER]Mannimarco is leveled so he's not powerful unless your also powerful, you'd think it wouldn't be such a noticiable difference because he is always 7 levels higher than you...EXCEPT, the good spells he has he can't cast untill your higher than level 35+ or about.[/SPOILER]
I need to slap whoever choose to level enemies lower than points which a) make sense b) the level they require to cast their spells
RyushiBlade on 27/6/2006 at 10:14
Heh, fanwankery.
I'm pretty sure this started off in the Hints and Spoilers section. Don't know how it ended up in General.
Christiano on 27/6/2006 at 10:32
When Traven kill him self he put his soul in the Collosal Black Soul Gem, and that make you so powerfull that you can take out the Necromancer asshole easy:ebil: . But it just work on Mannimarco and that sucks.:erg:
Malygris on 27/6/2006 at 15:36
I think all this is leading inescapably to the conclusion that while the Elder Scrolls series has progressed remarkably in a technical sense, it has faltered significantly as a game.
RyushiBlade on 30/6/2006 at 00:08
I was under the impression the Colossal Black Soul Gem just protected you from his 'ultimate-necromancery-spell-of-doom' which he used on everyone to extract the soul and such. So he was caught by surprised when his spell didn't work.
I wish the gem had been removed though. Jeez. I'm sick of carrying it around.
