It seems like the original concept didn't include Molag Bal and it was later reworked into a Daedric quest for whatever reason. I'm guessing instead of the shrine, there would be a hidden corpse of a murder victim that was haunting the house.
I always hated that you were forced into helping out Molag Bal. It fits with his whole m-o, but it feels lazy. An option to help out Logrolf instead (and maybe get an alternate in with Boethia) would have been something, at least, to flesh out this quest.
In case you were wondering; no, neither game guide nor the DialogueViews contain any more relevant info, I checked them all thoroughly. Also, you should really check out Leo Torres' reimaginings of the Skyrim locals on a proper scale. They're jawdropping eye candy, if nothing else.
Also what i find curious is that after you complete it you just get it as a free house in Markath all with persistent chests that dont deswpawn items like in player houses, but it very much doesn't feel like it was every meant to function as a player house, they all have a lot more structure to them? I don't know how to describe it but it stands out even among the houses added by Anniversary Edition and I'm not just talking about the altar!
Funnily enough Will Shen, ex Bethesda employee recently did a GDC talk, in which he talked about this exact quest. Although it doesn't really answer any of your questions unfortunately. It's an interesting watch though, i'd recommend it.
This doesn't make me nearly as mad as some other cut and re-arranged content does. At least you get a sick ass mace at the end of this one even if it's a bit more lackluster than originally envisioned and seems to be plopped in where another quest idea started. This one was a fairly smooth transition, all other quests considered.
I agree with you 100% on there being a different quest that they initially worked on with logrolf. I think You're right about it being half baked. They dropped the initial idea and changed directions without fixing any of their loose ends. I think maybe they were trying to find a spot to put Molag Bal in the game somewhere and decided that might be a good spot. As with everything else they should have kept all The original content lol
I don’t know why, because this certainly isn’t the case with most games, but 90% of the time, all cuts made to Skyrim were for the worse. Meanwhile, everyone was so deadset on the radiant questing, that no one foresaw how big of a joke that would become in the future. Really though, they had a really cool story setup here, only to do nothing with it at all.
Great job. I wonder what the initial timings were for adding all the Daedric quests, if Logrolf was literally removed from his dwelling in more ways than one to make it over as the shrine to Molag Bal. And how weird that this is the most private and obscure place in Skyrim to have such a shrine… don’t the daedra like temples or leaving around dangerous artifacts for mer and men? And Molag Bal ends up in somebody’s sub-sub-sub-basement, in a game with many vampire lairs and the whole DG DLC? It’s as if another location and probably plot line was scrapped. Instead of the straightforward moral rape of being a daedra’s bounty hunter, I would have liked to have seen the Dragonborn given a more complex choice, and possibly one where Molag Bal permanently affected their stats or appearance. After all, diminished stats happens with jail time. But I suspect whatever this daedric quest was originally supposed to be, it was probably too objectionable and dark for release, similar to the way Balgruuf’s homicidal children storyline was. And maybe the switch is a blessing.
That blurb from the strategy guide takes me back to the halcyon days of official guides being full of cut content and early draft remnants. The San Andreas guide got real sloppy.
Has it never occurred to you that Bethesda have created characters and places with backstories and only given the player a fraction of the information about that backstory? Not only that, they don't make a quest out of it with quest objectives, quest markers and quest updates etc? They leave it for the player to figure it out themselves. So what I gather from your video you are saying that the quest was once different and in it's early stages of development they would have had the player meeting Logrolf the Bent in Markarth, but they changed the structure of the quest and now they've got the player meeting a new, different character called Logrolf the Willful being held captive in a Forsworn camp somewhere in The Reach. Now I must have spoken to Azzada a dozen times in my playthroughs and I've never associated his dialogue with the House of Horrors quest. It's only since reading your blog that I have. Think about it; if it's a new, different character, why not just call him Wilhem the Willful or something? If it's the same character and nothing has happened that they are not revealing to the player why not keep the name Logrolf the Bent. It begs the questions What's happened? What's the backstory? What details should we consider? First "willful" is an antonym of "bent" "bend will." Has something happened that made him go through a name change? So then you ask, Has anyone else in Skyrim gone through a similar name change? The first one that came to mind was Bujold the Unworthy becomes Bujold the Intrepid upon retaking Thirsk Mead Hall and the player keeping her secret. We are as in the dark about Logrolf's name change as those Nords are in the dark about what happened at Hrothmund's Barrow. We have to ask questions like, How has Logrolf gone from bent to willful? And why are the Forsworn holding him captive? What we have to do is make up a story about what could have happened before we get there and by a process of elimination of things that couldn't have happened come to a conclusion of what's most likely to have happened. I will credit them this though, there will be enough material in Skyrim for us to come to the truth about this and all the other mysteries. They will have put that information in the game so they can say, "Well we told you the truth. If you think it's something else that's your fault."
Can I make a request for cut content, please? Aela has a unique line of text that doesn't seem to fit. If I back out of conversation in a certain way, then it triggers, and it's the only time it ever happens. She says "well that's certainly unusual". It's specifically when you meet her at Gallows Rock after becoming a werewolf for the first time and she starts a conversation with you. I'm wondering if maybe she thinks you're being rude, or if it's going to another line of dialogue that could have been used for a different reason, like half their content lol. I'm also curious about the Companions, in general, and their cut content, because of a line of dialogue by one of the Silver Hand members to Farkas just before he turns into a werewolf for the first time at Dustman's Cairn. The Silver Hand member says "he wears that armor; he dies", which I'm sure was supposed to reference Wolf Armor that Farkas wasn't wearing. Have a great day!
I’ll… have to look into that. The Companions are a bit messy, but generally don’t have a lot of removed content. What I can say right away, though, is that Aela’s unused scenario also has them saying: “She wears that armor, she dies.” Despite that statement making just as little sense there.
It seems like the original concept didn't include Molag Bal and it was later reworked into a Daedric quest for whatever reason.
I'm guessing instead of the shrine, there would be a hidden corpse of a murder victim that was haunting the house.
I always hated that you were forced into helping out Molag Bal. It fits with his whole m-o, but it feels lazy. An option to help out Logrolf instead (and maybe get an alternate in with Boethia) would have been something, at least, to flesh out this quest.
In case you were wondering; no, neither game guide nor the DialogueViews contain any more relevant info, I checked them all thoroughly. Also, you should really check out Leo Torres' reimaginings of the Skyrim locals on a proper scale. They're jawdropping eye candy, if nothing else.
They’re like what skyrim would’ve looked like if it was released on 12/12/12 instead /sarcasm
Imagine what they would have accomplished if the entire team were replaced by good devs. @@JayBMods
This quest always felt weirdly half baked even by Skyrim standards, this explains a lot
Also what i find curious is that after you complete it you just get it as a free house in Markath all with persistent chests that dont deswpawn items like in player houses, but it very much doesn't feel like it was every meant to function as a player house, they all have a lot more structure to them? I don't know how to describe it but it stands out even among the houses added by Anniversary Edition and I'm not just talking about the altar!
@@LysukoYou can call Helgen your home if you want. It does not despawn items either. I don't think you are meant to squat in that house.
Funnily enough Will Shen, ex Bethesda employee recently did a GDC talk, in which he talked about this exact quest. Although it doesn't really answer any of your questions unfortunately. It's an interesting watch though, i'd recommend it.
Huh, that’s cool either way, though. Thanks for the recommendation!
This doesn't make me nearly as mad as some other cut and re-arranged content does. At least you get a sick ass mace at the end of this one even if it's a bit more lackluster than originally envisioned and seems to be plopped in where another quest idea started. This one was a fairly smooth transition, all other quests considered.
I agree with you 100% on there being a different quest that they initially worked on with logrolf. I think You're right about it being half baked. They dropped the initial idea and changed directions without fixing any of their loose ends. I think maybe they were trying to find a spot to put Molag Bal in the game somewhere and decided that might be a good spot. As with everything else they should have kept all The original content lol
I don’t know why, because this certainly isn’t the case with most games, but 90% of the time, all cuts made to Skyrim were for the worse. Meanwhile, everyone was so deadset on the radiant questing, that no one foresaw how big of a joke that would become in the future. Really though, they had a really cool story setup here, only to do nothing with it at all.
Great job. I wonder what the initial timings were for adding all the Daedric quests, if Logrolf was literally removed from his dwelling in more ways than one to make it over as the shrine to Molag Bal. And how weird that this is the most private and obscure place in Skyrim to have such a shrine… don’t the daedra like temples or leaving around dangerous artifacts for mer and men? And Molag Bal ends up in somebody’s sub-sub-sub-basement, in a game with many vampire lairs and the whole DG DLC? It’s as if another location and probably plot line was scrapped.
Instead of the straightforward moral rape of being a daedra’s bounty hunter, I would have liked to have seen the Dragonborn given a more complex choice, and possibly one where Molag Bal permanently affected their stats or appearance. After all, diminished stats happens with jail time. But I suspect whatever this daedric quest was originally supposed to be, it was probably too objectionable and dark for release, similar to the way Balgruuf’s homicidal children storyline was. And maybe the switch is a blessing.
That blurb from the strategy guide takes me back to the halcyon days of official guides being full of cut content and early draft remnants. The San Andreas guide got real sloppy.
Has it never occurred to you that Bethesda have created characters and places with backstories and only given the player a fraction of the information about that backstory? Not only that, they don't make a quest out of it with quest objectives, quest markers and quest updates etc? They leave it for the player to figure it out themselves.
So what I gather from your video you are saying that the quest was once different and in it's early stages of development they would have had the player meeting Logrolf the Bent in Markarth, but they changed the structure of the quest and now they've got the player meeting a new, different character called Logrolf the Willful being held captive in a Forsworn camp somewhere in The Reach.
Now I must have spoken to Azzada a dozen times in my playthroughs and I've never associated his dialogue with the House of Horrors quest. It's only since reading your blog that I have.
Think about it; if it's a new, different character, why not just call him Wilhem the Willful or something? If it's the same character and nothing has happened that they are not revealing to the player why not keep the name Logrolf the Bent. It begs the questions What's happened? What's the backstory? What details should we consider?
First "willful" is an antonym of "bent" "bend will." Has something happened that made him go through a name change? So then you ask, Has anyone else in Skyrim gone through a similar name change? The first one that came to mind was Bujold the Unworthy becomes Bujold the Intrepid upon retaking Thirsk Mead Hall and the player keeping her secret. We are as in the dark about Logrolf's name change as those Nords are in the dark about what happened at Hrothmund's Barrow.
We have to ask questions like, How has Logrolf gone from bent to willful? And why are the Forsworn holding him captive? What we have to do is make up a story about what could have happened before we get there and by a process of elimination of things that couldn't have happened come to a conclusion of what's most likely to have happened.
I will credit them this though, there will be enough material in Skyrim for us to come to the truth about this and all the other mysteries. They will have put that information in the game so they can say, "Well we told you the truth. If you think it's something else that's your fault."
What is the text called which you use for Gifgas subtitles?
You mean the font? CERApro Medium.
@@UnknownG2000 I don’t know why I said the text lol yeah font. Thanks a lot!
Can I make a request for cut content, please? Aela has a unique line of text that doesn't seem to fit. If I back out of conversation in a certain way, then it triggers, and it's the only time it ever happens. She says "well that's certainly unusual". It's specifically when you meet her at Gallows Rock after becoming a werewolf for the first time and she starts a conversation with you. I'm wondering if maybe she thinks you're being rude, or if it's going to another line of dialogue that could have been used for a different reason, like half their content lol.
I'm also curious about the Companions, in general, and their cut content, because of a line of dialogue by one of the Silver Hand members to Farkas just before he turns into a werewolf for the first time at Dustman's Cairn. The Silver Hand member says "he wears that armor; he dies", which I'm sure was supposed to reference Wolf Armor that Farkas wasn't wearing.
Have a great day!
I’ll… have to look into that. The Companions are a bit messy, but generally don’t have a lot of removed content. What I can say right away, though, is that Aela’s unused scenario also has them saying: “She wears that armor, she dies.” Despite that statement making just as little sense there.
@@UnknownG2000 That's pretty cool. Thanks!
Hey man, do you have a telegram or discord? I need to ask you something privately. Sorry if this seems a lil weird, I'm not a bot I promise lol
Sure, you can hmu op Discord, unknowng2000