If there was one weapon I would have loved to have had for my character.

It would have been an Ebony Lance that I could craft with Smithing. I know Morrowind had spears or lances, but Skyrim and Oblivion didn't.

I'm just wondering why it never happened in either game?

Seems Morrowind still has some of the most fun weapons ( True Flame) and characters ( Almalexia and Dagoth Ur)

Don't get me wrong, Skyrim has its fair share of good weapons and characters and a few of the classic weapons. Just no Lances or Spears?

'Cause apparently they couldn't get them to work.

Pole arms is what I would really want to see.

Todd Howard said in a YouTube video I watched in 2011 or 2012 that they wanted to get spears in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but for some reason they could not get the spears to work the way they wanted the spears to work.

Which is weird because they had spears in the GameJam video from D.I.C.E. 2012. I liked the way they used spears in their GameJam video.

Here is the only real answer.

https://www.gamesas.com/topic/1207390-skyrim-fan-interview/

6) Will items present in Morrowind but not in Oblivion, such as spears, medium armor, and mark/recall spells, be making a return?
Todd: They are not in Skyrim for the same reasons we didn’t include them in Oblivion. I’ll address each one. First spears, the truth is we’d love to do them, but it becomes a priority and development time thing for us. We feel it’s better to spend our time right now making sure the gameplay for the other play styles is really solid. That includes sword, sword and shield, two-handed weapons, and bows. You can also add magic to that list. Getting those all working well together, while feeling different, is our priority.

As far as medium armor, that’s not a time or polish thing, it’s a design choice to focus on two armor types and making sure those feel different and the player appreciates them. We try to make your character move and feel different between light and heavy and having a 3rd one in the middle just muddies it up in how it plays, as well as visually. And even now, we still have to tweak those two armor types so they feel different, while remaining fun. Every time we slow down heavy armor more, it feels bad, but it’s the main way of balancing it. We’ve added other ways of balancing it that feel right—like different stamina drain rates when sprinting and such.

Mark and recall is one where it’s a lot of fun, but like levitation, was removed so we could design better gameplay spaces and scenarios. We were really limited in Morrowind because the player could recall or levitate out of many situations and break them. There was a lot of good gameplay and level design work that we just couldn’t do and now we can. Back then it seemed like many good ideas we had were shot down when another designer would say “oh yeah, I just levitate or recall away.” So we got rid of them.

Why would Skyrim have lances? That is a Medieval Era knight weapon for use on horseback...the Nords are influenced by ancient groups related to Vikings who did not use lances of any sort. Especially since horse-mounted combat wasnt in the game at release there would have been no way to utilize them anyways. As for spears the gamejam variant looked really stupid so im glad they didnt throw that in. You dont spin and twirl a spear, it is a jabbing and thrusting weapon. So a polearm would have made more sense in the TES universe although once again Skyrim wouldnt have them

Yeah it would've been cool. The way I look at it is Skyrim was pushed to the limits on the PS3 and 360. Hopefully on the newer systems it won't be the case with the next ES game so maybe we'll see some of things that we missed out on on this game due to pushing the systems to capacity.

I miss my fancy spell effects and spears/polearms from Morrowind. Its not game breaking without them, but I would love to make a Argonian character in Skyrim who's pride and joy is a lovingly crafted ebony spear that has put him through his many travels across Tamriel. I was hoping that Dragonborn would be bring us spears like Dawnguard brought us crossbows, but sadly it was not to be.

Next game, though? Hopefully. More variety in weapons is always welcomed. You can also mod in a pretty nice quarterstaff using the warhammer animations, although what would be really cool is to go third person and use it a a walking stick while travelling before readying it to bash some skulls in. I

Errr he's basically saying they didn't have time to do spear setups, as it requires obviously more animation work than the other weapons.

There is no reason why a nord wouldn't use spears, or why wouldn't spears be brought into Skyrim by Argonians, Imperials and other races that may have used them. Also, spears definitely weren't only used from a horse and for stabbing.

Nords do have a +5 in Spears in Morrowind. So do the Argonians. The only two races in Morrowind that have a + for spears.

It might not be up to date anymore with no spears after Morrowind but generally the Argonians were considered masters of spears due to the nature of Black Marsh. A sharpened stick is a very easy weapon to make, and with most imperial fancy technology not surviving the horrorswamp that is their homeland I think it just becomes the weapon most argonians are used to.

First, spears WOULD be my favourite weapon, but ONLY if done very very well. We'd need a really good throwing animation. I'd like other throwing weapons then as well, like throwing knives, throwing axes, even throwing clubs like the samburu tribe or australian aborigines used to have, even just the ability to throw stones. But yeah, the animation is paramount, like they need to get some motion sensor dots on an olympic javelin throwers and etc. I'm yet to see it done well in a game. A game as good as skyrim would have been ruined by a really silly throwing animation.

Ahm spears were the main weapon used by vikings...

Nords haven't mastered the art of a big, pointy stick to kill people with.

Not enough lusty Argonian maids to polish them...

What about the spears the Reiklings of Solstheim use? I've got some of them, but I haven't tried using them. My character has no archery skills.

I said there is no reason for LANCES, spears would be fine because Vikings were well known for their throwing spears. If you actually read what i wrote i said the spears they did for the gamejam svcked

Polearm is not a spear, vikings didnt use a spear as a quarterstaff. It was a thrusting weapon meant to either fight against cavalry or be thrown at light shields. SO once again i repeat: Vikings would not use Lances (which are NOT spears but a later weapon developed from the concept but used in a different way) but they would use spears HOWEVER in the gamejam (ie Bethesda's little project for ideas in which they did show what a spear would be like if they put it in the game) the spears were used like quarterstaves rather than spears...you would think people would know how to read before posting on a forum

Well, this clears things up. Thank you, AwesomePossum

Still would have been cool to see my character wielding a lance and impaling enemies on it. Be cool for vampires to have if it had been included in Dawnguard DLC for the Volkihar ( Vlad the Impaler kind of thing) sort of how the Dawnguard had a whole armory of cross bows and vampire slaying axes.

I never said spears were for horseback...do you seriously not know the different between a spear and lance?

The default weapon of the the Viking commoner/peasant/farmer has always been a spear or similar type of weapon. Cheap and easy to make. Only the rich had swords or battle axes. And only noblity could afford armour. Economics same as always.