Bethesda, it would seem, is awfully crafty. I was reading http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Tamrielic_Lore, when the entry for the Dragonbone Cuirass caught my eye:



The use of dragonbone as a material is telling, since Dovakiin appears to be a warrior who had previously fought against the dragons in Skyrim, and seeing as how his name translates to Dragonborn, it's interesting that he had a connection to Zurin Arctus (the Imperial Battlemage for Tiber Septim/Talos/the Dragonborn).

After that, I noticed the Goldbrand entry, which has this to say:



Again, references to dragons of the North, in this case, them forging a sword for a warrior sworn to defend them (from the Dovakiin, perhaps? If he did have to go up against such a foe, it makes sense that he would want a cuirass that protects against fire).

So, my question is, then, how freaking long has Bethesda been planning this story? And if I'm right, does that mean there exists a document (a real life Elder Scroll, if you will) that has all of the future games' plots planned out? Perhaps somebody should pay a little "visit" to Bethesda HQ... :whistling: :ninja:

I think they have been planning it for a while. They first trademarked "Oblivion" in 1995 and made a reference to an Oblivion invasion in Daggerfall as well as made references to the falling of the Ministry of Truth in Morrowind. They seem to plan stuff a while ahead.

I guarantee you that they've been planning the return of the dragons from the second they decided dragons should be rare in Tamriel and not present in the games.

We don't know if it's really the return of dragons. At this point, I think it's a return of the Akaviri, with a dragon.

Dragons were always in tes lore. I'm not surprised that they may be featured in tes5. as for planning for a long time. maybe. But i doubt they knew at the time of developing DF taht in 3 games time the story might revolve around dragons. I think they take it as it comes. And it just so happens they maybe doing dragons.

still I think akiviri dragons are the more plausible type of dragon at this point, not dragons of the north. But who knows. :shrug:

You can meet a dragon in Redguard Adventure...

They also knew that Morrowind

It doesn't necessarily mean they were "planning" anything. These are all just the lore details that are involved in world-building. If you're going to set a game in the northern country, then of course connections are going to appear with things related to that country. There's plenty of backlog of stories and events that happened in the past in TES lore, just because they can reach back and draw on any of them doesn't mean it was all some elaborate plan set out years in advance.

My guess, they considered possible plots after Oblivion was complete, and started development on the story and ultimately TES V after FO3 was complete. I am guessing that their developer skill set is rather specific and limited, so nothing started before FO3 was complete. New Vegas did not pull as much from the same pool of developers. They picked from existing Lore and basically started in late 2008 or early 2009.

I think Elder Scrolls are real. It just makes sense.

I remember reading on the old forums years ago that someone had found a copyright of Skyrim, posted by Zenimax and Bethesda. This was March of 2007, I know, because I sent the link to that thread to a friend via gmail.

In fact, here's the old link (not that it works) http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=637831&st=0

That was when the first speculation about TESV: Skyrim started. I remember their hopes and dreams were huge.

As far as planning goes....I think Oblivion was the last of the long term plan games, it ended the era, it killed off the emporer that had started each game and reshpaed the world. There were plenty of refering to oblivion in morrowind (mystics predicting the future).

Your just refering dragon is lore.....dragons have always been lore, it doesnt mean they have been putting dragons in stories in preperation for this game, they are simply drawing apon the exsisting lore to make this story.

If this is true, then... Well, there must be references to TES VI in Oblivion somewhere xD

Those rumours about Summerset Isles and increasing Daedra worshipping might be a hint for TESVI :/

Well, it's hard to say for sure one way or another. The nature of writing storylines is that authors can generate stories far faster than developers, artists, level designers, game system designers, animators, and actors can create games. I wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination that the writers at Bethesda could have created a narrative arc that would span a decade of games, in just a year or two's time (thhey wouldn't even necessarily have to come up with all the fine details of story, just sort of major plot-points). That really wouldn't be that amazing a feat. Once it's written, the rest of the people could spend a decade actually implementing all those stories into 4 or 5 or 6 games.

On the other hand, as others have suggested, it could just be that at the beginning of each development cycle, the designers and writers spend time going over the body of existing lore, and pick up 'dangling lore threads' - e.g., finding interesting things which exist in lore, but were never really developed, and making sure in each new game to add enough additional such 'dangling threads' that they leave themselves material to pick up and develop further in the future.

Like, for example (Spoilers for The Shivering Isles Expansion in example below):



So, it'll be fun to see. As for their planning ahead . . . well, there's certainly no reason they couldn't have, but there's likewise insufficient grounds to say that they definitely did.

Im not sure if you realized this, but skyrim has been up there since they made arena.
I'm sure they planned out a majority of the lore and future events for all of the locations in the elder scrolls universe.
They probably have left hints for the game that will take place in elswyre/argonia/valenwood/etc...

As much as I would like to think they've plained out all TES games in advance, and, say, already have the plot for TES IIX worked out already, and have the entire TES series all intertwining with each other, I think it's mostly just they expand on unexplored lore, and what not. But who noes, I could be wrong.

If Todd starts going blind, we'll know.

lol