the elven armour in the recent art vid looks very LOTR type elvish and not TES elvish... because its certainly not dunmer, bosmer... it could be altmer but they are portrayed as robe wearers most of the time. The beauty of the armour doesnt reflect any of the current elf cultures in TES.. so is the elvish armour in TES meant to be from the ancient elf cultures? ie Ayleid?

It was the same way in Oblivion. I just guessed Aldmer or Ayleid.

i imagined them with medium/light armour- not the heavy armour


and oblivions aylied was 90% lotrs with a 10% change because they were afraid of being sued

This is an interesting point. I didn't know if the Elven Armor from Oblivion was Altmer, Bosmer, or Ayleid. I think it was Ayleid. But now I see it again in Skyrim, changed, ok, but it's still an Elven Armor. I guess I was wrong and the Oblvion's one eas Altmer... or maybe this time it's a Falmer armor.

How in the WORLD were Ayleid like Tolkien's elves AT ALL? I can see not ONE similarity. The Ayleid were cruel, slave-holding empire builders, with massive stone cities imposed upon the country-side, and a philosophy and religion totally unlike Tolkien's wise, elegant nature-lovers.
It could be said that the Ayleid are totally opposed to Tolkien's elves, as they feel that nature and the world are cruel restraints forced upon them by a trickster god, and they actively worked towards its subjugation and to transcend it through manipulation.

On topic, it's certainly not Falmer. They're semi-mythical to the Nords, and certainly don't have armor laying around for adventurers to pick up and gallivant around in.
I guess it's just a generic Aldmeri-armor style; I could see it being made by either the Altmer or the Bosmer although without strong association with the cultures of either.

Remember that a race is a collection of individuals, and can't be pegged down to a single stereotype.

Ayleid armor? Would "ancient" armor really be that common?

I've always thought it was Bosmer/Altmer armor and weaponry.

I think he refers to Elven Armor, being pretty similar to http://www.warseer.com/gallery/data/561/medium/High_Elf_Warrior.JPG Although my problem with elven armor wasn't thire similarity. It was how horrible boots and helmet were...



I wish people complaining about the new dwemer architecture could understand this...

Oh, certainly. Aesthetically, the elven armor in Oblivion was strongly influenced by LotR, as were many things.

I tend to forget about aesthetics. :confused:


Anyways... I'm not sure that the Ayleid ever had a strong enough presence in Skyrim for there to be extant armor; if that's even what elven armor was in Oblivion.

I don't recall very well, but I think that when the Nords came to Skyrim they were fighting off the Aldmer. The Ayleid (Heartland High-Elves) are strongly associated with the central jungles of Cyrodiil anyways; as one would expect given their fascination with and emulation of the Wheel... Their whole endeavor revolved around being at the CENTER.
Furthermore, they enslaved the Skyrim Nords; which suggest that the Nords were already living there before the Ayleid came to power.

In my opinion if this is really Ayleid armor, they should also name it as such. Same with Dwemer armor. I was a little annoyed by the Elven Armor/Dwarven Armor name approach in TES4 as it was just too generic fantasy for my tastes and just confuses people that actually read the lore of the gameworld.

I agree. But they had to make it accessible to a mass-market; they wouldn't have money for Skyrim if they just pandered to us.

Well, to me it was more of an insult to both our intelligence and the lore of the gameworld by using generic fantasy names. The unique fantasy names (Ayleid, Dwemer) devised by Bethesda could have made it a more rich world in my opinion :shrug:

Also, what is http://www.gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Components-ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer-Blogs-Components-WeblogFiles-00-00-00-00-06-Bethesda/1586.SkyrimArt200.jpg_2D00_140x0.jpg? It looks rather different than the 'Elven Armor' which was shown earlier.

I don't know what armor is, but in Game Informer (the mag), there was an image of a man wearing something similar. I think he was fighting one of those floating frost-serpents... Icewraiths or something like that.

Are we allowed to post links, to imageshack for example, of screenshots from those videos?
If so, I can post some much larger, easier to see images.

Milt: Yes, you're even allowed to make wallpapers out of them if you so choose

I think it does look quite a bit like the one labeled "Elven Armor", only it's sharper and more stylized. And feminine, of course.
It looks more like scales, whereas the "Elven Armor" looks like feathers. Maybe it's some sort of "Draconic" Armor? We did have those Dragonscale Cuirasses in Morrowind.


That armor is definitely the same as the "Elven Armor" from the video. As is the armor on page 58 of the GI magazine.

I actually think that the Elven armor was really cool if you ask me. :liplick: I mean does resmble LoTR elven armor, but with its own flavor. One thing that I don't get is how every single time they show elven armor no mer are wearing it? :huh:

Keep in mind there is no guarentee that the elven armor in Skyrim shares the same origins as its Oblivion equivalent. While the use of the same name would suggest it is, the fact is that calling something "elven" is sufficiently vague to allow for different origins, when your setting has multiple different races of elves. It would be like if there was "Human armor" and "human weapons", it could be made by Nords, Redguards, Bretons or Imperials, in fact, when you get down to it, technically dwarven armor in the Elder Scrolls could also qualify as "elven" armor, as could the chitin, bonemold, and other native Dunmer armors seen in Morrowind, because they are all created by races of elves. I could certainly buy it being of different origins from Oblivion's elven armor, on the other hand, it could just as easily be made by the same race. After all, it's not like all armor made by whatever undefined elven race made the armor found in Oblivion would look identicle realistically, and from the concept art, the style is close enough that I could believe that it's the same kind of armor, just with a new design to fit the art direction of the game.

So is it Ayleid armor? I had always assumed Oblivion's elven armor was that, but I don't think Skyrim had many Ayleids, so maybe it's from a different race of elves, or maybe not, we'll see, or maybe we won't, since the origins of elven armor were never clearly explained in Oblivion, will it be explained in Skyrim? We don't know yet.



I can agree that they're pretty similar, though different enough that there's no copyright issues. And I didn't like the elven helmet either, though the same goes for a lot of helmets in Oblivion, I noticed, I don't mind the cuirass, gauntlets, and greaves, but I could have done without the "antlers", as for the boots, I think the biggest problem is the "toes" at the front.



The dwarven thing makes perfect sense as that name is in fact used in the setting, in fact, I'd go as far as to say calling it "dwarven" armor in Oblivion makes MORE sense because the term Dwemer would usually be used by elves who haven't adopted Imperial culture or scholars who research the subject. To the average people in Cyrodiil, calling them dwarves would be much more common, so your character is much more likely to think of the armor as dwarven armor than Dwemer armor, and if you're going to complain about that, you might as well also complain about the races being called "Dark Elves", "High Elves" and "Wood Elves" in the race selection screen and character stats screen instead of "Dunmer", "Altmer" and "Bosmer". Which has not changed in the series since the series existed.

"Elven" though is a stranger choice

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6117/art6t.png is the unidentified female armor, and http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/2932/art4y.png is the "Elven Armor" for comparison.

You'll note that the women in the first picture seems to be a Dunmer, which addresses shadow agent's concern.

The thing about 'elven armour' that really bugged me was the name. It's like naming an armour 'human armour'. Gee, how descriptive.
I mean, technically chitin, bonemold and netch leather armours are 'elven' too. They're traditional Dunmeri styles after all.

It did always seem to me the armour and weapons shared characteristics with some Ayleid stuff in Oblivion, most notably the big statues, and various Ayleid artifacts use 'elven' nodels as well, so I figured that's where it came from :shrug:

In one of those male pics it looks like he's giving someone the finger!
AND JUST REALICED!!! THE WOMAN PICS HOLDING A HELBEARD!!! SO DOES THIS MEAN SPEARS ARE INGAME???

Not necessarily, it's shaded out and could just be conceptual, without being actually implemented in-game.
That said, I think it probably does. It seems quite likely they'll have pole-arms.

My first reaction is more that it looks based on the image you linked, not that it's a rip-off.

And I'm curious, where in the images we've seen is the Dwemer architecture?

I don't think they're ayleid armour either, as someone said I think it's just a generic name. There would realistically be more than one type of fur, leather and steel armour and so on and so on. Wouldn't real armour be a little more individualized than they are in games?

I liked the elven armour in Oblivion, I didn't mind the boots or helmet, but I can see how it doesn't appeal to everyone. However, I like the new design better and don't think I'll miss the old one too much.

I believe it's been confirmed that the picture of Markarth Side, the stone city cut into a cliff, is composed of Dwemer ruins. And there's the new style of Centurions, seen in the sound video on Game Informer.

Best not to try to build lore around game design choices.

Eleven armor was shown on Aylied guards in one quest (OB) and yet its common accross Cyrodill implying its of more recent manufacture (Altmer crafted). Not sure what BGS had in mind but remember that all Liches shop at the same store and at least one of them was an Ayleid King so lichware is Ayleid as well. And then there are the actual Ayleid statues which have yet another design. I prefer not to believe that all Elven armor is 2000 years old and Altmer can't or won't forge new stuff. Just accept its either really old or a new import. Whichever gets you thru the night.

I don't think the Elven Armor to be a copy or something similar. I was just trying to explain the position of another person, that has said it practically a copy.

The dwemer architecture can be seen in the image of the ruins, in the Game Informer.... I don't remember what update. Although it's a very controversial image: Pete Hines linked it once in twitter indicating it was dwemer and another time to show "the size of the cities". It could be a human city, a dwemer ruin or a human city build on a dwemer ruin... or something different. The name of the image is "Markath".

Yeah, "Elven Armor" isn't very descriptive in a setting that has like a dozen types of elves. I guess we can rule out Dwemer and Dunmer (unless it's Dunmer in the same way that Cheydinhal was). Maybe it's named that by some Nords in a remote mountain town that doesn't get many visitors from the south and sees like one Altmer a decade. "So what kind of armor is that?" "Uhh, I dunno - elf armor I guess".

Looks like a redguard to me, no bluish shade and no red eyes like the dunmer have. The color looks soft brown to me