http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2013/05/03/ask-us-anything-variety-pack-4

Most of it is boring gameplay stuff, but there were a few points here that stood out to me:

"Something that is in big debate on every single forum I've seen as of late is the life expectancy of the different races of Tamriel for roleplaying purposes. Can you please elaborate and give us some numbers to work with for each race or at least the Elven races (Altmer, Bosmer, and Dunmer)?

Elves live two to three times as long as humans and the “beast-races” (Orcs, Khajiiti, Argonians). A 200-year-old Elf is old; a 300-year-old Elf is very, very old indeed. Anyone older than that has prolonged his or her lifespan through powerful magic."

At the time of Tribunal, Barenziah was 430. I know that The Real Barenziah makes reference to her wielding destruction magic at one point, but was she ever known as a particularly powerful mage, or is the above simply wrong? (Divayth Fyr is another obvious example, being 4000 years old, though if he doesn't qualify as powerful, I dunno who does - and Master Neloth is looking damn good in Dragonborn for being, at the bare minimum, "very, very old indeed".).

"What is the social and legal opinion of slavery in Tamriel during this time period?

It varies by jurisdiction. The Clans of the Reach, for example, certainly keep captured enemies as slaves – but they’re barbarians. In most civilized realms, slavery is illegal, with the obvious exception being Morrowind. Under the terms of the Ebonheart Pact the Dark Elves have had to liberate their Argonian slaves, but they still have slaves of other races, the most common of which are Khajiit."

So that answers the question of what the Argonians get out of the Ebonheart Pact, if they see it as an opportunity to liberate themselves long-term.

"Are we going to encounter Dragonborns in ESO or learn shouts ourselves?

The line of Reman Cyrodiil of the Second Empire was certainly Dragonborn, but they died out at the end of the First Era, and between then and the date of ESO, no “legitimate” Dragonborn has been confirmed by being able to light the Dragonfires in the Imperial City.

As for shouts (i.e., thu’ums), at the time of ESO, they are considered a legend out of the distant past."

This is surprising to me- even though the Tongues were disbanded by Jurgen Windcaller in the early 1st Era, I was under the impression that the Greybeards were still taking students and teaching the Thu'um to them (Ulfric jumps to mind here). I hope they go into greater detail on this point - maybe the Nords simply forgot the Greybeards were up there until Talos came along?

I don't think they'd forget the Greybeards - especially since Jorunn had went to them (at least according to ESO lore) to summon Wulfharth (who I would expect to Shout a few times during the battles with the Akaviri).

I think what he means is that the Thu'um is treated by people like it is in Skyrim(the game), yes the greybeards still teach people, like Ulfric, but its so rare that most people just consider it legend.

The only thing that irks me is Orsimer being classified as a beast race. Probably just semantics though.

Well, Barenziah was royalty, so she can be filed under the "lucky" category. You also mention Neloth and Fyr, Both extremely powerful wizards.

I see no problem with the answer

At first, I felt the same way. However, should we really consider Orcs as elves? Hell, Paarthurnax doesn't even refer to you as "mortal" or "elf," when greeting him as an Orc. He refers to you as "Orc," specifically. You'd think one of the oldest-living dragons would acknowledge the elven origins of Orcs, but perhaps it is for the sake of being "pariah" that they are singled-out.

At the time of ESO, the Orcs were definitely considered a beast race by most people.

Yup I remember the topic about about elf ages it was pretty much the same answer most common elves live up to 200 those with a better lifestyle and such 400 or so and mages well pretty standard elf mage age of going into the thousands if they are talented.

Plus the whole orc thing the bretons and the redguards did consider them beasts heck I think people thought of orcs as beasts before they were a race choice some of the gamers when they first played morrowind was against the addition of this race because of this reasoning.

Orcs are often called beastfolk, even if they are actually elves, and the Thu'um is rare enough as to be unknown to many in 4th-era Skyrim ("What manner of power is that?!"), so I don't see why most people would consider it to be a myth. I believe that it's also been mentioned that elven royalty tend to be far longer-lived than commoners (no source; correct me if I'm wrong), so Barenziah's age doesn't really conflict with their answers, either.

The only thing from the answers that really bothers me is "The Lusty Argonian Maid" being available 800 years before it's actually written.

True, but the question and response is supposed to be devs speaking from a position of authority, not RPing ignorant peasants.

A good point. I don't think Orcs consider themselves elves for that matter. Doing so would go against Malacath's teachings.

It's semantics though. I still think for general classification purposes: Orsimer are elves even if corrupted. But whatever, no biggie.

The argonian maid I think is going to be more of an easter egg considering the popularity of the book. My brother was rolling on the floor laughing after I told him to read each volume.

You know what? I am going to find the video form.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLSOcKHK3Fc

Here it is.

I hope they don't forget the Sultry Argonian Bard.

The problem is that their gives us some slightly different info - that 300 years is the max for those with a better lifestyle, luck and no access to magic. Adding well over a 100 years to that because "she's lucky" seems a bit of a stretch...

As I've said elsewhere

a) Curio (the writer) can bend time, or

B.) Curio found the work of not well known author and started to publish it under his own name. (Plagiarized)

Well thats what the lore forum told me when there was a topic about elves age I personally just like to think elves just live a very long time to keep things simple.

Or transcription error-contradiction-chim-dragon break-Curio is an aspect of Akatosh-lol.

If it is B.) it will have to be written by a different author obviously.

After their emancipation, the majority of Argonians in Morrowind neither returned to Black Marsh nor enlisted in the Pact's armies. Rather, they continued in their previous jobs under similar terms, perpetuating their status as a socioeconomic oh god what is this word salad. At any rate, the original tale featured a Lifts-Her-Tail who began the property of a particularly eccentric mer and later found employment with a moderately wealthy (and equally eccentric) Nord. Only a single manuscript was produced, and it was never intended for public consumption. Curio merely managed to get his grubby mitts on it. /spec

Not buying the freed Argonians BS. There is no way that would happen with all the Dunmer as the answer implies. "Under the terms of the Ebonheart Pact the Dark Elves have had to liberate their Argonian slaves,"

I am sorry, but if surrendering to the Empire meant an entire Great House of Indoril Nobles killed themselves in protest to that, what would freeing all the Argonian slaves cause? Why would Morrowind even realistically deem it necessary?

Well you have a daedric lord pulling the realm into oblivion it would be good to have more *coughcannonfoddercough* i mean soldiers YES more soldiers!

Well thats how I see it.

I've seen a few references to Orcs as Beasts rather than Elves already in TESO, so that's nothing new (though I personally don't subscribe to it). Honestly, I like most of these answers, which surprised me a lot. A few things stood out, though, and not always in a good way.

--I, too, am concerned about the age answer. Barenziah is/was royalty, yes, but Symmachus was basically a mercenary for Tiber Septim--a commoner who was a young advlt when Barenziah was born, and yet was still powerful and virile enough at the age of about 400 to father children and go to battle. He was not exactly expected to fall over dead at any minute, considering how shocked Barenziah was when she learned that he had died in battle--if he were aging, she would have been prepared for the eventuality of his death, even if not the method.

--I like very much that medium armor is making a return in this game. I can only hope that they have provided a good variety of suits this time around, though; I recall that one reason for dropping it after Morrowind was because there simply weren't enough decent suits of armor to bother with them in that game, so nobody really wanted to wear it. I also remember hearing that the best suits weren't comparable to the best light and heavy suits, either, so here's hoping they fix that as well.

--I suppose the slave question provides a decent reason for the continued involvement of Argonians in the Pact (though it still doesn't explain why they decided to help out in the first place, since I'm sure no one was offering them freedom before they demanded it at the negotiation table after the battle described in Jorunn's origins book). That said, I'm much more interested in the other Morrowind-related news about the Tribunal. The answer seemed to be handwaving the absence of Seht and Vehk until the very end, where we are told that whatever weighty matters are on their minds will be revealed to us. I like the idea of the entire Tribunal being involved in a major subplot, which this answer seems to be pointing to. It gives me hope for the relevance of the Pact. Now if only there was something equally compelling about the Covenant that would raise my opinion of that group, too...

EDIT: I just read Albino Dunmer's rebuttal about slave releases. Yeah... I guess I'm back to where I started again.

--I also like the answer to the thu'um question. Notice that the word they chose to use to describe it is "legend," not "myth." The word legend implies that it has a historical basis (Song of Roland, for instance, which is basically historical fiction), at least compared to a myth (Narcissus, for instance, which is almost certainly not historical, being the origin story of a species of flower through the death of a young man). The thu'um comes from legends--this doesn't mean that people don't believe it exists, it just means that it's something that they feel cannot be replicated or brought to relevance in their time, especially as pretty much all living Tongues reside in a mountain monastery and receive no visitors. At least, that's how I see it.

--Related to the previous point, I couldn't help but notice that the question seemed to define "Dragonborn" with Skyrim in mind, but the devs answered the question with the definition and restrictions that were implied by Oblivion, centering on the Dragonborn's importance in Cyrodiil and the Empire of Akatosh. Personally I like that restriction, but not everyone agrees with me that there's necessarily a difference between the Dragonborn definitions given by Oblivion and Skyrim, so whether or not this presentation will cause problems in the future is up in the air.

--I don't know what to think about Ayleid ruins being found in Black Marsh and High Rock. I suppose I don't like it, but then again, it's not that hard to get to Black Marsh from the Niben, which is after all the river that the Ayleid civilization based itself on. High Rock, on the other hand, is a mite bit harder to understand, considering that the bulk of Hammerfell is in the way...

--Having said all these things about the answers that I generally don't mind, I find myself hitting my head on a desk over The Lusty Argonian Maid. As time has gone on, we have seen that the devs have become more and more conscious of the fact that not everyone plays TES games just for the gameplay: They have seen how their mistakes have led to backlashes, and while they first seemed to stumble, they have become smoother in keeping their game on its feet around people trying to trip it up. So why, why would they do something this blatantly lore-breaking? This answer was like a flashback to "transcription error," an age when they didn't even try to get it right. I find myself wondering if it was written by a completely different person than the one who had put together the rest of the article...

This is just me being optimistic, but who says they didn't go along with it kicking and screaming? And there is a difference between "ALMISVI says we gotta let the lizards go" and "Humans are coming in to tax us, live with us as equals along with their cat and lizard friends, and placing their Legions all over the place." The latter, not the former, is the bigger deal.

Edit: Also they said, IIRC, that there will be conflict in the factions. This will probably be one of them.

It made sense that Black Marsh would have a few, at least along the border. But it does seem strange that they would be found in High Rock.

My reasoning for this:

-The Direnni helped the Ayleids defeat the Alessian Order at the battle of Glenumbria Moors. I would imagine this also means the Direnni offered the Aylieds shelter, and they began to found cities in the region.

DP

"Humans are coming in to tax us, live with us as equals along with their cat and lizard friends, and placing their Legions all over the place--and Vivec just told us to go along with it." Yet Indoril, the Great House with the biggest connection to the Temple, refused to go along with it regardless. House Dres, too, disliked Vivec's treaty because of its restrictions on the slave trade--their resistance to Imperial rule was one reason that they were not given lands on Vvardenfell. If an entire House was unrestful due to a treaty that only restricted their ability to gain new slaves (but specifically preserved their rights to hold the slaves they already had), then how much more furious would they be to be told that they must let go every Argonian slave and be unable to take another--especially considering that the Argonians are the easiest targets, and Dres's economic reliance on slavery is based on its lands proximity and easy access to Black Marsh?