i was horrified when i found out about this and even more so when i read it. i think it ruined most of what i loved about TES. the story was droll and mostly contained undeveloped characters spouting drivel at each other. i just want to know if this sham of a novel will be considered canon and be incorporated into future TES games?

btw this is just an opinion. i dont want to recieve hate messages from angry troglodytes.

Yes its canon. And I rather liked the events of the book, it showed that Beth isn't afraid to change, which is a problem a lot of fantasy series go though.

damn, ok thanks.

I liked it. Gave a lot of insight on the other provinces like Elsweyr and Black Marsh. I kind of want a new ES game in Elsweyr, now that I have heard about the roaming clans and the skooma addicts of Rimmen. I also like how tamriel has started to shift drastically. The civilizations, destroyed, have to rebuild into new cultures and also Imperial law is not tainting the provinces existing ways of life any longer.

Wow, you are really great at discussions, especially with you use of strong words like 'sham', and 'troglodytes.'

Any who, yes it is canon, and this is only part 1 of a two part series. Characters are understandably underdeveloped because, because it's only the beginning of the story. In the very beginning of everything, it's always character development. We learn the people of the story and parts of their adventure. Once character development has been established, the story takes the lead. In the second book, expect to find less character development and more story driven plot or what have you.

Morrowind went boom, as predicted, so don't get yourself in a tizzy. That discussion has been done to death, and has been known since Morrowind if you read Vivec's Sermons.

The argonians kicking ass has also been noted in the lore forums for a while now. I think it was MK that gave us that tidbit.

As for everything else, I found it to be extremely lore friendly. It took existing lore, and added more. We all knew the empire was going it fall, as it was only held by a toothpick. Now we have a new case of someone not dragon-born or touched by the divine before birth coming into power from lowly beginnings to high office. Titus is shrewd, decisive, and has a plan to bring Cyrodiil out of its chaos back into the superpower it was. In addition, Summerset Ilse is showing its true colors by trying to reverse everything back into the Aldmeri Domain. The dunmer being displaced and being welcomed by the nords of Solstheim, and eventually "making peace with the worm."

Yep. Canon Bethesda-guided story is Canon.
And predicted occurrences within said canon story were predicted.

And likely http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1069774-official-the-infernal-city-an-elder-scrolls-novel/ is likely.

I dont know. If you've ever watched your favorite games, books, or movies slaughtered while in the process of switching onto a different entertainment platform then you'd understand why im reluctant to accept The Infernal City as part of the next section of TES lore
examples:

Lord Of The Rings: yes they were good movies but before the Viggo Morteson dominated films debuted near the dawn of the new millenium a horrendous made for T.V. movie aired for the first time in the late 70's. also noting that the character translation between the lit. and the movies was flat out bad. the games are not even worth a dishonorable mention
Magic: The Gathering: Once a forerunner in TCG's, this notable game series developed a number of novels and low budget games. soon after the fans started dropping like flies hitting a bug lamp
Metroid: though still remains faithfully VGO, are beloved Samas Aran almost took a wrong turn at Talon V with the begining of the production of a Metroid Action Movie, similar to The mortal combat movies or the horrenduos Mario film

I wouldn't really call it being switched into a different medium. Hell, I'd wager the majority of TES lore is already contained in books, they're just not real books.

Anyway, as Hellmouth said, change is good. Stick with the same tired old thing too long and you stagnate.

Do bulls have wings?

I don't know what you're talking about, because magic has more customers than ever, actually. More people attended FNM and tournaments this year than ever.

Regardless, it doesn't matter how flavorless the characters are or aren't, as long as the lore is sound. Which it is. Morrowind was going to be destroyed FAR FAR before Keyes ever came along. Its in damned Morrowind.

Do they also talk and make love with the women?

really? oh my bad. maybe its just where i am. everyone plays yu-gi-ho(:D)

Typically, things get slaughtered when they go from books to other mediums, or games to another medium (save for books. Hell, Halo was more interesting with its books). But that is beside the point. I liked the book, the lore was very sound and faithful, and I honestly felt more interested in the series since the book came out. I cannot wait for the next installment. It felt like Beth was going back to more lore based than mass-appealing with mediocrity. You may consider it an affront, but many of us has welcomed it, because as I mentioned, it's faithfulness to lore is to the letter (save for some spelling errors), the characters are interesting enough to get into for a short book, and the environments presented in the book actually makes me believe that translating all of that to a game is going to be a difficult hurdle for Beth to go over, until tech. gets better.

well we will just have to agree to disagree. anyways peace out

Sigh... Azura was one of the greatest villains ever. You didn't realize you were basically paving the way for the destruction of the Dunmer culture and their very home, as well as essentially killing one of the greatest and most important gods in Tamriel, until it was far too late.

And gore elves who have enslaved humans alongside their robot uncles?

Canon: yes. And I'm glad. I'm reasonably sure this was all pre-planned by Bethesda before giving it to a professional writer, so therefore this would have happened in the books or a linear spin-off game, or we wouldn't have been shown it at all, but it would have happened, novel or not.

My other opinions on the novel can be found ion the official thread.

I haven't read the book, so I can't say about my thoughts on it, but as to it's status as canon, I have to go with everyone else's assumptions and guess that yes, it will be considered canon. And if any future Elder Scrolls games take place after it, they will take into account the events of it, even if they take place before it, they will likely take into account whatever revelations are made in it. There probably wasn't a change to the status quo of the world of revelation of new lore that wasn't approved by Bethesda, and it seems pretty stupid to let someone reveal aspects about your world for you if you intend to declare them not canon in the next installment in the series you make yourself, so like it or not, I think that unless Bethesda tells us otherwise, we can assume that yes, Infernal City is indeed canon

Obviously, fans don't actually have to LIKE the new lore, but that's irrelevent. Canon is what the creator's declare is true, not what fans say is. If fans don't like any particular revelation, they can declare that it's not true, but that isn't going to stop it from being used in future games. If those fans are lucky, Bethesda might catch on and retcon the offending bit of information, or just pretend it never happened, though even then it might still leave a bad aftertaste in fans, and I would consider that a fairly desperate measure to appease fans.



I could argue about that point, at least, when judging the book's merits as a book. After all, the lore is only there to set a background for the story, the real story is shaped by the characters, their actions, and what happens to them. So if the characters are boring, even if the world is interesting, the story still falls short of what it could have been. However, as I said, this mostly applies to a story's merits as a story, as far as the novel's impact on future games, you are correct, if the lore itself is good, even if the characters are boring, it still won't hurt the series much as a whole.

To be fair, though, the character's in the actual games are usually pretty boring too, but they can get away with it as they're games, they have gameplay to make up for it if the characters and story aren't interesting. Whereas in a book, without the story, you have nothing.



This sort of thing is hardly uncommon (For example, the vast majority of movies adapted from video games, and while video games licensed from other medias do seem to fair somewhat better, a fair amount of them are also pretty bad, especially those which obviously come out around the same time as a high budget movie it's based on only to take advantage of its popularity.) Obviously, I've seen examples of great works get less than satisfactory adaptations, but in the end, it helps not to take your entertainment too seriously, I think. One must always remember that a game is only a game, not some sort of sacred thing which would be a sin to defile. If it gets a bad sequel, prequel, spinoff or adaptation, it's only natural not to like it, but life will be more pleasant if you can move on in the end.

However, the examples you gave differ a bit from the case of Infernal City, as Infernal City is an actual new installment in the Elder Scrolls franchise, while it's in a different medium, it's still a tie-in to the events of the actual Elder Scrolls continuity, by comparison, as with many movies based on books, the story of the Lord of the Rings was already finished, the movies were only just an adaptation of the original story, so those who did not like the changes they made could still read the original books, satisfied that they were two versions of the same story and not in the same continuity. With Infernal City, whether one likes it or not, it nonetheless is part of the overall continuity of the Elder Scrolls.

finally, a brother in arms!

Why wouldn't a game advertised from second one as a canon installment to the series not be canon all of a sudden when a bunch of angry Dunmer [censored] fail to realize this was already stated to be happening as far as two games ago, I ask on further introspective thought? Yes, the Dunmer got blown up, but that was talked about in the sermons and the loveletter. And as for everything else:

1: The characters were deconstructions. So of course they seem like playing tropes straight. Annaig is what would actually happen if someone who reads too many adventure novels gets into an actual adventure. That's clever. Attrebus is a deconstruction of the Warrior Prince. The characters are fine.

2: The lore. Not only is it accurate to previous lore (Unlike Oblivion, oh how edgy a joke THAT is) but it also advances it forward realistically, using pre-establlished lore (and as I stated, what Bethesda already had planned anyway) to move forward (Unlike Oblivion, oh wow the joke was almost funny that time), like how Morrowind was, as we saw before, was destroyed.

That is exactly what they want. Bethesda was starting to have TES freaks (like me) lose interest, and so they published these books to 'fill the gap' between the two games and to release the lore that they had made, but hadn't fit into the games. I think they want to start over without getting yelled at (like the differance between Daggerfall and Morrowind ? players of the games generally hat each-other.

I loved the book except that is seems so incomplete and thus I long for the next one. And most of all, I long for the next game.

I believe the books will take us to an exciting new game that is beyond our current imaginations.

Ha! Yeah It pretty much makes whatever your hero did in Morrowind irrelevant. What good is it to save Morrowind from disaster only for it to fall in even greater disaster! Like killing a mad bomber from blowing up a building but forgetting to defuse the bomb. It reminds me of Beowulf: He saved viking society from the monster(s) but couldn't save society from itself as turbulent and violent as it was. I guess one could use that rationale though I doubt Bethesda even thought of that. What if the Nerevarine saved the day and crammed as much Dwemer satchel charges into the Ministry of Truth and blew that sh*t to kingdom come. What if the Nerevarine seized power from King Helseth--assuming the crown of Morrowind and made a harem out of his dishy mother, his widow Dinara Dres, and all the comliest lasses of the noble Great Houses? Or repelled the warring Argonian tribes of the north? And freed or slaughtered the rebellious Argonian slaves. Or what if the highly vaunted warrior-monk Martin Septim took a daedric arrow through the mouth and it really was up to the glorified flunky COC to take the fight to the daedra? Bethesda lacks interesting follow-through.

What irks me most is that the PC doesn't have an impact on the game from Morrowind to Oblivion. That's just how the whole ES is structured; each new story separate from the last and the *mysterious* heroes going off to Shangri-la after completion. Which is why I find a series like Mass Effect so intriguing. ME1 and 2 are connected and your actions affect the game and well into the next. Bioware sets up the canvas but you paint the picture instead of Bethesda only giving you the choice between using red or blue paint.

...how much is Bethesda paying you?

If you think moderators get paid, you are in for a disappointment someday.

Anyway, there's little of any consequence in the book that's inconsistent with prior canon, and in particular the events are consistent with Morrowind and with out-of-game writings by those closely associated with Morrowind. I'm not sure exactly what sort of foundation it is trying to lay for a new game, but it won't have undermined too much the way some of the fanciful accounts of Cyrodiil in Morrowind did.

It's not elevated writing by any stretch of the imagination, but it doesn't repeat any of the world-subordinated-to-level-scaling faults of Oblivion, nor does it fall short of being entertaining. I especially look forward to more episodes of