Hi!

Don't you think, if magic in Nirn is like science in the real world, and magic has been there over thousands of years, mages had to study it more? I mean, magic is awesome, it's totally unrealistic people don't want to develop magic more. If you can throw fire with your hands, mages would invent a way to use fire to calcinate something and make energy.

What do you think?

I'm sure the mages have developped spells that are far more destructive or far more useful than what the recent games offer us. In Arena, you could destroy walls and/or floors to access other rooms. That was not done in the other games because of the engine limitations.

In Daggerfall, there are spells that immediately kill a Daedra or a Undead. Those could have been done in Morrowind and Oblivion, but with their game mechanics it would have been too powerful.

No....I mean, use magic like technology. Like using magic to move "vehicles" or transport goods using giant teleporters. Why people use ships, or siltstriders?

Its cheaper to build a boat then have a mage build a transporter system capable of moving large amounts of stuff.

edit: but yes, I'd love it if they had "magic as tech." Semi-automatic mages staff!

Expenses, Id imagine. A fulyl dedicated mage is one working hand less on the farms or in the mines. Society can support an amount of nonworkers (nobility and specialists) but only so many, which is reflected via the principles of demand and supply in the prices. If magic were so common as you say, it would pay very badly, and thered be no reason to devote your life to it. OTOH, in the situation as its now, its surely cheaper for most people to do things not by magic (and yes I know magic travel is cheap in MW, but again, game effects are not encessarily how it is in the background).

Because TES is a http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis setting, and http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Magitek would quickly evolve it into steampunk.
And we can't have that, can we.

Magic, not being realistic? Holy shirt, Batman! I demand that the next game's magic system be based on how magic behaves in the real world.

To address the point more seriously: "Why don't they use magic instead of siltstriders?"
Uh, you mean, why don't they have Divine and Almsivi Intervention anchors, Mark and Recall spells, an organization of teleportating Guides run by the Mages Guild, and an old Propylon Network? Yeah, I wonder why. I mean, if these things had been put in the game, it would have definitely given the impression that magic is being used for productive, utilitarian purposes such as traveling, but as it is obviously it's just a way to blast fireballs at scribs.
PS: What makes you think siltstriders aren't magic to begin with? If you think about the anatomy of such a beast, you'll find its existence much easier to justify if magic supports it rather than if it's entirely natural.

Yes, but building a large teleporter would be better for the economy than a silt strider. If a sil strider or a guar spents 3 days to reach a place, the teleporter sends the goods instantly to the place. It's like people in tamriel don't have the intelligence to use magic for evolved purposes. Teleport can change the world! Or what about using destruction to generate energy? Or a way to make automatic enchantments. It would produce more enchanted items, and their price will get down. But no, the wisdomly old ancient mages can't think about make profit using magic, but they can make rain fire or summon antediluvian beings from other planes. :nono:

I thought I had already listed four different teleportation networks that exist in Morrowind (propylons, guild guides, temple and cult anchors) and yet you still argue about "why don't they create teleporters"?

I somehow have the feeling you didn't really get what Gez meant.

It's not realistic to always use the newest invention. Economic reasons, for examples. Sometimes, cheap, pragmatic and easy-to-use means are better than high tech, magic or otherwise. That's why people still go by foot instead of always leviating around. Besides, there is a way of making automated enchantments: Enchanting Altars. Also, why should using destruction to gain energy be used: Destruction uses energy in form of magicka. The only thing it does is transform the energy into another form. This may be desirable in some cases (burning foes to cinder), but it doesn't work if you mean "generating energy out of thin air by using magic".

Besides: the "wisdomly old ancient mages" make money by the tons: because they're training people. Because they sell the spells. And there's another thing in it: safety. There's a difference between trained people using magic and the local village idiot using automated enchanted magic artifacts because they're cheap and is only required to pull a trigger... Magic IS dangerous.

Magic is hard to use.

Ta da.

I know this may cause flaming, as the movie of Eragon svcked, but,
Magic should be more Eragon-esque, where magic is more difficult to learn, but much more powerful to those who know it.

Instead of allllllll these random people skilled in magic, have just those directly linked to the Empire.

I say, remove magic from all these tom dike and janes, and give it to a handful of servants of the Empire.
Reduce it tenfold, and increase it's power tenfold.

With the player being able to learn it, but it requiring more training and knowledge. Or course this won't happen, because there's far too many Elves.
Unless this is in Skyrim, then we can JUST have Elves and the Elite know magic.

Well, I mean't, use teleport to transport large amounts of merchant goods. Why globalization Has not appeared in Tamriel? It's like people refuses progress. I know it's difficult, schemics are hard to learn too, but we need them to leave, and not only the mages, all the common people!

Propylons are only used by the sixth house(I think) the other transports are personal transports from Mages Guild and the Temple. I can't believe they even tried to make a huge merchant teleporter

Thanks for the explaining of using destruction to make energy, I didn't know that magic only changes the shape of energy

Just because there is no "feature suggestion" forum doesn't mean the lore forum is it.

Magic falls down from the sky. Everybody who is ever under the sky (hint: that's everybody who is not above the sky) gets irradiated by magic energy. That's the setting. There is absolutely no reason to justify restricting it "only to the empire".

Finally, "making magic more powerful" would mean what, in the game? The engine is not going to support truly powerful uses of magic, such as, say, tearing a mountain out of the earth, making it fly, and building your castle above; or turning the entire population of a city into mutated demonzombies, or imprisoning a rival in a thin pillar of metal and sticking it on a mountain top so that lightning would strike his eternally-alive tortured self every time there's a storm nearby, or increasing knowing the exact position http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle momentum of every particle in the entire universe.

Shhh... That's the magic of the Void Ghost Eaters!

And how do we know magic hasn't been developing in the Elder Scrolls? I don't think we have too many details about what magic looked like centuries ago, and in any case, shooting fire out of your hands or healing wounds is obviously not the only use for magic in lore. Necromancy, for example, or making Telvanni towers, but whether for game engine limitations, game balance, or simply because Bethesda decided it wouldn't benefit the game, some of the more advanced uses of magic are not available to players.

In any case, I don't want to pull the whole "It's magic, of course it's not realistic." argument, as while it is a fantasy concept, and therefore does not need to be bound by real world laws, it is still not unrealistic to expect it to follow a certain logic. However, it is worth noting that because magic does not exist in our world, it really is difficult to determine what a "realistic" direction for it to progress is. Certainly, unless historic events cause knowledge to be lost, such as when the Dwemer disappeared and a lot of their knowledge disappeared with them, one would expect to move forward, but how would it move forward? This is a more difficult question, and how do we determine how advanced a fictional science (And though magic in Tamriel might not be anything like real world science, I've always liked to think that those who research it would think of it in a similar fashion to how real scientists might view their work.) is when the real world lacks a proper counterpart to compare it to? This is a harder question, I think. Now does the progression of magic in the Elder Scrolls make sense? I don't know, but I wouldn't say it doesn't simply because they haven't developed the magical equivalent of cars yet (After all, why would they even bother developing magical vehicles when teleportation can get you places much more quickly?)



Well, making magic more powerful could also mean just making spells have stronger effects, or at least better strength to magicka cost ratios, but that's just a matter of game balance, a more powerful or more cost effective fireball doesn't really scream "Advanced!" as soon as you look at it, even though it may be explained by more refined techniques of casting or making spells.

I think it would certainly be interesting, but look at Oblivion - take it as perfect canon, you become basically the most powerful mage in existance if you take that route. You can enchant a ring to strip someone of their powers, or set them aflame. You can't make something move of it's own accord. Now, I'm sure a theoretical mage could do something more, but magic has only been around for a few thousand years, the mage's guild (More organised magic) has been around for much less time. Though it'd be awesome :3

Let's also not forget that some magical knowledge has been lost.

If I recall correctly, the Dwemer tried to mix technology and magic. Hmh, what was it now that happened to them?

Oh yeah, they got wiped off the face of Mundus. A divine sign that technology should never be a part of the TES universe. For a fantasy setting, TES is quite original. Technology would just ruin this.

Just because your character is the only person who actually uses the teleportation chambers ingame doesn't mean that others don't use in the lore. I assume that any merchant willing to pay can teleport through the MG all they want.

No, they tried to return to the first stroke of Anu and Padomay, not pettily mix technology with magic. To do this, they made a really big being (bigger is more divine), and absorb themselves as to become the golden skin of the Numidium, and thus, ascend to the next sub-gradient of being by reversing themselves back, or something like that (basic explanation)

How do you know that some merchants don't use amulets of mark and recall to move items? How do merchants restock thier inventories instantly?

And just imagine what it would be like to be a guild guide, all day every day you have to spend all your magica sending people here and there, it must be the most boring job in ther world and that is when your customrs can talk, it would be ten times worse if all you were doing was moving boxes about.

At a profit, for little effort. Its hardly the worst job for a person to do in their world. You could be a muck farmer.

I know it's an old complaint, but anything, concerning the Elder Scrolls universe, with the word "unrealistic" in it makes me cringe.

Magicka is not used for everything because of one simple thing, in my opinion. Variety.

If you teleported everywhere (Oblivion, anyone...) it would become redundant, even outside of game-play. Instead of reading about adventurers crossing deadly landscapes on foot, facing the harshness of nature, it would be "and average-joe then took a small trip to the local Teleportation shop..."

It would be boring, and therefor wrong. Yeah, I just caught on to this...

Mark and recall in the game can only teleport a person and the items that person is carrying back to a specifically marked spot. I am not sure how well this represents how it works in lore, but I could certainly imagine it's something like that too.

Guild guides possibly use a form of teleportation magic the player can't use, I don't think it's ever explained exactly what spell they use. In any case, I don't doubt that



You can't teleport anywhere in Oblivion, your character presumably walks, rides, or runs everywhere, the process just isn't shown when you fast travel much as how many movies will skip some redundant or boring parts with no relevance to the plot that no one wants to see. And you can't fast travel just anywhere, you can only go to places you've already visited, or major cities, which your character presumably has visited before going to prison, and are generally connected by roads, which would generally be relatively safe and straightforward traveling, so you still get the traveling across deadly landscapes, or you would if Oblivion HAD many deadly landscape to speak of.

That being said, though, it is true that it would be rather boring if people could just teleport anywhere, imagine how you would feel if you read a fantasy book and there was no long journey involved or anything else, some old wizard just teleported the heroes to the evil fortress where the villain resides or the mysterious dungeon of mysteries where the Sword of McGuffin the Godslayer is hidden, it sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?

However, just because something is entertaining for audiences doesn't mean it makes sense in the story, and because of this, the best works of fantasy usually need to make up rules and explanations to explain why magic doesn't afford the characters all the conveniences a force that appears to be able to do whatever the plot requires it might offer.