If you ignore your own preference, what do you the chance of the dwemer making some sort of return is? Be it a Skyrim expansion or a new game? Do you think it's realistic to assume that Bethesda could be at least considering having them return in some fashion?

For an example, I like the dwemer, and it would be awesome if they returned.. BUT, it's probably best that they don't! However, Bethesda may think differently?

Of course they're considering it; they'd be silly not to. There are enough suggestions that a plausible scenario could be made for their reappearance, i.e., their disappearance was the intervention of someone/something else to prevent them from tapping Lorkhan's Heart and they were shifted through time to whenever/wherever. As for odds, who cares? They'll do what they do.

The devs would really have to stretch some logic and go out on some pretty thin branches to get the Dwemer back.

I think the souls of the Dwemer have been completely mutilated in their transubstantiation. It would take some sort of reset switch or time machine to get them back, and even then I don't think it could be done because Numidium made a mockery of linear time, and you can't simply go back to before the disappearance of the Dwemer and stop it.

So, wait, the whole Dwemer-turned-to-Numidium-casing is canon? I thought that was just another supposition.

It's been Word of God since before Oblivion. Even then, there's hints littered all over Morrowind, and strong indicators in Skyrim for this to be true.

I started with Morrowind, and I don't recall that being spelled out there, so I didn't realize.

As I said, it was hinted, never stated, in Morrowind. It was then Word of Goded (dev post) sometime between Morrowind and Oblivion. Today, there is a quest line in the College of Winterhold that further hints that the dwemer became the Numidium.

If Bethesda has plans to bring back the Dwemer, then they must really not understand anything about what makes the Dwemer so popular. It is far more fun to wonder about them and revel in their mystery and learn of their disappearance and all that jazz than to actually have them come back and just be another race flooding Tamriel. I just recently made http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1328475-return-of-the-dwemer-bad-idea/ in the TES General Discussion forum addressing the people who keep requesting Dwemer return + as a playable race.

Have to agree completely. Dwemer are more fun as a mystery. Not to mention, they sounded very xenophobic and not all that nice. Enslaving the Falmer and warring with the Chimer, for instance. If they just popped back into current Tamriel, they most likely would just go back to living separately from everyone else in their underground cities. After killing any explorers trespassing in their ruins.

Not to mention, that there are at least four provinces that haven't been the focus of a large game yet: Alinor, Valenwood, Elsewheyr, Black Marsh. If Bethesda made a game focusing on the return of the Dwemer instead of exploring one of those provinces, it would really make me mad.

Having the Dwemer return as a playable race would be a svcker punch to the jaw of the Dwemer's mystique. They're cool because they are complicated, did a lot of complicated things, thought thoughts that were amazingly different that anyone else, and we see evidence of them all over the place, yet we know next to nothing about them considering the grandiosity of their culture.

Withholding information creates mystery, and in the case of the Dwemer, I don't want that mystery ruined.

I agree about what makes the Dwemer interesting, and like to think that Bethesda won't mess that up, but at the same time, I suspect they're a business, and if enough people want the Dwemer back... again, it wouldn't surprise me if they were considering it.

If people keep wanting the Dwemer to return then they should start playing Morrowind and meet Yagrum.... One Dwemer is enough

I agree. The Dwemer are my favourite race, they're disappearance being the reason I started reading the lore forums after Morrowind, but I don't want/need to see them in game. I can't see even Bethesda making the mistake of butchering this mystery.

The most plausible way they could return in a future game/DLC imo would be, some Dwemer general knew of 'the plan', decided it wasn't for him, escaped with an army to an outer realm when the war started, and is returning now to reclaim . And that does not sound particularly enticing to me.

Right now Yargum is all the dwarf I need, I hope that s.o.b made it outta Vvardenfrll alive.

Edit: Afterthought, a game set in the past is the most plausible way to see Dwemer in-game.

It would mean I would have to relegate the Sermons to the scrapyard.
I dont want to.
Ive spent the better part of a decade trying to understand that delicious mindset so I may dwell in those regions, as I have with many other thinkers I admire, such as Terry Pratchett or Jeroen Bosch.

I would oppose it as I oppose the new Star Trek films, I would declare them not-canon.
Fan-dumb if you will but if you want to make a great story how about you make your own. How about you dont take one everyone loves and rip it to shreds so it fits the 'modern mindset and is all a lot darker'.

/rant.