I found out that lore in morrowind is more interesting than in oblivion. Dwemer, ALMSIVI, tribunal, Sixth house, dagoth ur... the list goes on forever. I personally love the concept of dwemers. In oblivion, there are, well, Mythic dawn, ayleids, and.. Well, can't remember any more right now. For some reason, ayleids are not interesting. Don't get me wrong, oblivion is still damn good game. I hope that in the next TES we get a little more info on dwemers.

This thread title never needed that question mark.

Oblivion lets you come to your own conclusions. It does provide a considerable amount of lore about things Morrowind never even mentioned, such as the Renrijra Krin, but it's not the sort of thing for you if you just like being told what happened from a book.

Not in my opinion. Here is what I got from the lore in the games.

We did learn a little about the Ayleids but we don't know the cause of their disappearance, we don't know more about the realm of Oblivion, we don't know much more about the Aedra unlike Morrowind where we know what happened to the dwarfs, we learned tons about the Tribunal, we learned a lot about the Sixth House (We only learned a little about the Mythic Dawn), we learned more about the Dunmer (We learned nothing about the Imperials in Oblivion), we learned more about Morrowind (They broke their lore with Cyrodil), and we learned more about the politics there. (We learned that Cyrodil has no politics in Oblivion)

We actually learned quite a lot from Umbacano and other Ayleid researchers (an Imperial woman is one of them, I think, and I think she's the one you get an Ayleid crown from), and a lot about the Ayleid language, as well. We learned about the divided Ayleid society and what an Ayleid king actually was, and also something about the rivalries and political intrigue between the different cities.

They disappeared because many of them were absorbed into Imperial culture, destroyed by some Imperial cult (that's the Ayleid ruin in the Valus Mountains, but I forget what it's called; an in-game book goes into more detail), or fled to Valenwood. The book Last King of the Ayleids has a lot of lore about this, and explains that the Ayleids didn't disappear, but rather continued to rule as vassals of the Alessians for centuries after the rebellion.



Whatever you see of Mehrunes Dagon's realm and the Shivering Isles is what we know about Oblivion that we didn't know in Morrowind.



I'm sure that the Knights of the Nine questline had a lot to say about the Aedra, although I'm not sure. But we don't know what happened to the Dwemer.



We can't learn much about the Tribunal now that it has collapsed (which is another important part of TES lore that Oblivion gave us). And people who say we don't know anything about the Mythic Dawn have not read the Commentaries, or Jearl's orders. We can guess at who does what in the Mythic Dawn, how they assist Dagon, and their ranks.



Read the Trials of St Alessia, Remanada, and other in-game books that tell you a lot about the Imperials. Or just walk around and talk to people.



The nobility were united by a common threat, so there could be no feuds. But we know that Leyawiin is left to defend itself from talking to citizens after you close the Oblivion gate outside the city, and we know what the nobility think of each other and why. We learned much the same in Morrowind. The difference is that we couldn't interfere in politics this time.

Morrowind has the Monomyth it wins

But don't downplay Oblivion. Gallow's got the right idea.

Morrowind has the Dwemer thus it automatically wins.

Ok, I'm incorrect there.



Incorrect there too.



Maybe KoTN had info on the Aedra but we do know what happened to the Dwemer.



We knew it would collapse in Morrowind.



Wrong there



No, I saw no politics in Cyrodil.

They still changed their lore with Oblivion though. Where is my jungle?

In the bottom right corner. With the appropriate hue adjustments, it looks very much more like a jungle than a marsh.

There is not much depth in all that though. What is it's political structure? Feudally? City State Hegemony? Centrally organized? Where are the bureaucrats? How is it socially organized? It's a melting pot, but how does it come about? What keeps it going? What are the social classes? Who are the political players? Who are corrupt? What are the various ideologies? Where are the numerous religious cults? Where do the criminals come from? And more importantly, how does it all relate?

I'm not a historian, I'm just a guy that reads allot of books, but there are so many slices of history that are more interesting and have more detail to them Oblivion does.

Hell, to take a contemporary example, one of the guys leading Blackwater is said to think of himself as a Crusader. Just to understand the how and why of that single sentence you need to know the whole history of a religion, that of a nation, it's wars, it's culture, recent events and the current mood. To understand why it's news, you need to understand even more.

Now I don't expect anything that actually goes that deep, but some 2k words of this sort of inter-related information on Cyrodiil would be nice. (For comparison, that's what the Savant class had to tell about Morrowind.)

No, that's the swamp I'm afraid. Even UESP agrees, there is no jungle in Cyrodil now thanks to Oblivion.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Blackwood

I was just going to post a question on Oblivion's reception in elder scrolls lore when i saw this one.

In Oblivion they re-used most of the books in Morrowind, and the new ones matched OB's relationship to MW, nowhere near as deep.

That was what I thought about the in game books. Too bad the both lack some of the books of Daggerfall. Especially the more interesting ones.

since when has oblivion had any lore?

Meh I don't care about Dunmer at all so no. Imperials are far better than all those tight asses in Morrowind.

And Morrowind doesn't?

Dwemer koff koff

Oblivion explains practically nothing, so yes, there are some tidbits of backstory that require searching, but plenty of it is just unexplored, half-told stories, so don't confuse it with some narrative style.

Without getting into a huge debate about it, yes, clearly Morrowind's lore had a lot to offer TES over Oblivion's. To be fair, Morrowind introduced the player to the land of Dunmer. But to break the shell of the conventional "dark elves", Bethesda overhauled on the lore to make Morrowind a very bizarre and unique environment. While I disagree with how Oblivion's environment was developed, I do echo the statements made by others about how lore contributions were made in Oblivion. Lorkhan/Akatosh? Jyggalag/Sheogorath? Comparatively though, I really feel that Morrowind's lore easily trumps the lore provided in Oblivion.

Oblivion's lore seems more geared towards the esoteric aspect of Tamriel. I prefere more "real" things, myself, but OB did a good job of giving more info about things like the Amulet of Kings, 1E Cyrodiil, yadda yadda. Morrowind's lore is still more interesting though.

Uhhhhh, I'm sure that Sheog is a Daedric Prince, and Daedric Princes have realms in Oblivion.

It is geared towards the esoteric because the exoteric is absent, not because of any particular focus.

Morrowind was so much more foreign, ergo interesting. If Morrowind followed the archetype of dark elves, no one would be arguing that Morrowind had greater lore contributions than Oblivion. Because it didn't, its lore was far more rich and deep, to get away from the traditional concept of elves.

-Hexon

Oblivion is just one of many realms. Oblivion is Mehrunes Dagon's Realm. Shiver Isles is Sheogorath's realm. You see, each Daedric Prince has its own realm, and no realm is in another Prince's realm.

Oblivion is everything that is neither Nirn nor Aetherius. Dagon rules over the Deadlands.

I agree... The ayleid probably have as much as lore as the dwemer.. mayby a bit less.. And some things of the ayleids are still a mystery.. there are enough quests involving ayleids (KOTN!!!) or research on ayleids