How closely do you think TES games should follow lore?

Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:16 am

Ive been lurking the forums for quite a while and seen this pop up quite often and wanted to know what everyone thought about it.

EDIT: please tell me if you felt i left something out.
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MatthewJontully
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:49 am

I voted on the 3rd option :P
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Myles
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:17 am

No direct contradictions to hardly defined lore, but bending it a bit if it's ambiguous or changing it if the source is dodgy is okay.
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YO MAma
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:50 am

Bethesda have repeatedly said in interviews that they follow the lore as much as possible but also deliberately treat the lore as not set in stone, unless it has happened in a previous game, basically because all the books, in game, are written by a fictional character in the world so they can treat them as one persons opinion/experience and not dogma/cannon.

The latest books coming out like The Infernal City are cannon tho.

Works for me :wink_smile:
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bonita mathews
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:36 am

Bethesda have repeatedly said in interviews that they follow the lore as much as possible but also deliberately treat the lore as not set in stone, unless it has happened in a previous game, basically because all the books, in game, are written by a fictional character in the world so they can treat them as one persons opinion/experience and not dogma/cannon.

The latest books coming out like The Infernal City are cannon tho.

Works for me :wink_smile:


Except when designing Cyrodiil though. Worst. Retcon. Ever.
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Amber Hubbard
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:43 pm

Weren't most of the books in oblivion from morrowind and/or daggerfall?
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mike
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:21 am

Except when designing Cyrodiil though. Worst. Retcon. Ever.



This is true. Was weird and actually still bugs me.
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Breanna Van Dijk
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:58 am

The Cyrodiil thing was a blunder because they went against pretty clear facts of Cyrodiil's landscape. It's not like there was much room for "different interpretations", or what have you.

The mythology/religious stuff is quite different, however. First, the nature of the subject means that it's very difficult to decisively adjudicate competing claims. How do you get decisive confirming or disconfirming evidence for a metaphysical hypothesis? Second, the texts we read are often written (or have been presented as being written) by parties with political/cultural/social agendas, and as such their objectivity can not be trusted. So there's plenty of scope here for Bethesda to play around with the lore.

The historical stuff is somewhat in between. There's that old chestnut: history is written by the victors. Don't need to agree with the letter of that, but it's still worth noting that, just as with the mythic/religious texts, the texts we read are often written (or have been presented as being written) by parties with political/cultural/social agendas, and as such their objectivity can not be trusted. So, again, there is scope here for Bethesda to play around with the lore. But it's a finer line to tread than with the religious stuff.
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Dona BlackHeart
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:44 am

Follow it as close as realistically possible.
&
Fairly large amount

I don't mind if TES retcon the story, as long as the end justifies the change.
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Ridhwan Hemsome
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:46 am

The 2nd options.
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Epul Kedah
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:14 pm

Whats the point in creating lore if your not going to follow it?

MUST be followed!! Must must must must must!
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Emily Martell
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:36 am

Third and second option.

I like it when a game series has realistic ambiguities.
E.g. a certain "historian" was later found to just be making [censored] up 'cause it suited him. That gives character to the series.

However, as already said above: changing the whole Cyrodillic landscape is, to me,
the same as saying Vivec's still alive and kicking it up with Dagoth Ur as BFFs. (E.g. Lame, nerdrage-inspiring laziness)
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Jimmie Allen
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:01 am

Whats the point in creating lore if your not going to follow it?

MUST be followed!! Must must must must must!


I'm not saying to contradict the clear history of Tamriel, but some things are not from reliable sources, one off statements that are unsupported, ambiguous etc. For example, I think they could bring back Yokuda. The Guide to the Empire says Yokuda is "gone", but it's stated so ambiguously, it could just mean the society has dissolved or something. Books can also be wrong. The same book says the hist are a strand of Argonian that have become part of Tamrielic society, which we know is not true. Hist are trees.
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Gwen
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:17 am

I think they should follow the lore as much as possible. As others have said books are good since the authors are not always truthful or get things wrong which works nice on lore changes. I voted option 2 i know a fair bit about TES lore having played both Morrowind and Oblivion of course i'm sure i've forgotten the majority of it.

What exactly is the inconsistancy with Cyrodiil? I played Morrowind AGES ago and i wasn't much of a bookworm when i did so i don't recall anything about it.
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Genevieve
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:15 am

It used to be a jungle.
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Yung Prince
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:42 am

As close as realistically possible. Which I think is the same as the third option given here - since many writings are secondary or tertiary sources. Or completely unreliable and written by borderline insane people, floating around in their cities named after them.
Except when designing Cyrodiil though. Worst. Retcon. Ever.

This. First announcement? Cyrodiil! Yay, open world jungle RPG.
Screenshots...
...
What the hell is this? This isn't Cyrodiil, this is the Nibenay Valley EVERYWHERE. :rolleyes:
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le GraiN
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:06 am

It used to be a jungle.


Ahh i see.....it's....changed then. While it'd be a real problem with the lore i can honestly see why it was changed. I don't think a jungle would have worked out half as well.
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Laura
 
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Post » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:38 pm

No direct contradictions to hardly defined lore, but bending it a bit if it's ambiguous or changing it if the source is dodgy is okay.

This.

Also, my memory is a 'lil bit hazy, but weren't it was actually Tiber Septim/Talos himself who changed the landscape of Cyrodiil?
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Fluffer
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:05 pm

Yeah, but I remember it being me a bit of a pull, though. Like, "oh no it was totally changed, totally, seriously didn't you hear about it? I swore I told you, right, nah, Tiber Septim changed it, totally."
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Lily
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:16 am

If you've ever looked at it, they structured not only the Elder Scrolls themselves, but the ingame lore so that it -is- flexible. Example from Arena; The Staff of Chaos. Originally the magic Mac Guffin of the story, with nothing else told about it......save that it could open interdimensional portals, and was forged 'of the land itself'.....which allowed it to be broken into 8 pieces, as there were 8 provinces of the Empire. Now in Skyrim, we find that its breaking was the first event in the chain that heralds the return of Alduin. Which suggests that it either predates the Empire, or was created at its very beginning. Probably predates though, as if you look at the Wall of Alduin, the center section triad looks as if one of them is holding a staff. That could easily move the staff from MacGuffin in the hands of a power hungry battlemage to one of the key weapons that defeated Alduin and locked 'him' away from the world the first time. And who's breaking started a chain of events leading to now.

One of the first rules of writing: never tell more than you have to, lest ye paint yourself into a corner.
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Ally Chimienti
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:21 am

I remember reading a book about vampires in TES 4 (its been mention a lot on the forums, the name escapes me though), and it said the vampires of skyrim could reach through solid ice and they were generally not to be messed with, unlike the cyrodil vampires, and also heard about were-bears in skyrim from the forums.
would adding both those things in skyrim be following lore as close as "realistically possible"?
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Benji
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:07 am

"Follow it loosely, and make space for any ideas that contradict lore that increase the overall quality of the game"
But it also means "use common sense". Lore is religion to some people around here ;) Like personally, I consider some of it superstition. Like back in the day where the earth was the center of the universe, then solar system, where earth didn't become round and orbiting a major celestial body until much later. If old lore have to be sacrificed to more modern science after so many years, in order to bring in cool gameplay, I say go with it. But I would like an explanation on what happened, I'm not *completely* ignorant :D

"Some, played oblivion and some/none of morrowind"
Although I've played since Daggerfall (but only DF, MW, and OB, no major official mods), and I tried to stay current back in the day, lore knowledge and putting it to good use is a thing of the past for me. It's just how my memory works, ok? :P I do look up stuff from time to time though. So even if I'm not a lore guru, loosing mystisicm was a tough one. And I'm really not all that much into magic (in OB, where I just think magic is far too convenient due regeneration).
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LuCY sCoTT
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:04 am

Follow it as much as possible, but obviously there should be room for changes if it would result in a better game. The good thing about (some) lore or certain types of accounts or tales is that they can easily be claimed to be false or distorted - kind of like how stories change throughout time as they are retold and adapted each time.
On a side note, I'm interested to see how the Alduin/Akatosh thing is discussed ingame. Bet there is at least one book about it.
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Marta Wolko
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:20 am

I don't think that playing more than "Oblivion and some/none of Morrowind" constitutes a position of fairly large knowledge of the lore. I played a lot of Morrowind, vanilla Oblivion, some of Daggerfall and tint of Arena, but still consider myself a newbie to the lore.
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Marion Geneste
 
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Post » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:24 am

Follow it closely for stuff like provinces (Cyrodiil change was assinine). But for religious and political stuff, that can easily change. I'd probably say I know almost all of it.
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James Rhead
 
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