Yes, seems Bethesda is going back to the Daggerfall days with transforming at will and wolf packs(We had a single daggerfall quest where werewolf was in a pack). And can werewolves die of age, or do they simply take longer to die? Albjorn says something that sparked some interest. "You are more than mortal. You are Moon-born. You are wolf."

Then again, it could mean something different. And I guess Bethesda just wanted werewolves for the Companions questline and nowhere else. "So, you're a companion then? I can't imagine you got your gift anywhere else."-Arbjorn on player's Lycanthropy. That is some interesting information, as well. I love that Bethesda did flesh out some Lycanthropic lore. I remember in Bloodmoon there was an ability called "Spirit of the Wolf" ever since I imagined werewolves to be tied with something more primal, comparing to indians and native barbarians and such. I guess "The Totems of Hircine" book gave much info on that, saying werewolves where around before men could speak or write. Sort of like the Cavemen era of our world. The whole thing even says it was before Tamriel was civilized.

Hmph.....how sad. Are they really that frightened of effeminacy?

Bluntly, yes.

Especially judging from a good many of the posts I saw in the Skyrim General asking about why male players would play female characters in games like these. Many people would put down answers like "I have played dozens of characters since Daggerfall, but never have played as a girl." Or "I used to roll up female characters, but then in Oblivion, the characters in game would refer to my character as a "lady", so I kicked the habit." Of course, that was inside a chorus of "I play as a woman because I like looking at a woman's butt as she runs," which are hardly more admirable, although I still believe a portion of those people are just scared to admit they enjoy actually role-playing as a girl.

Of course, a portion of that is also cultural. Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, and Metal Gear Solid 2 all come to mind for the difference the nationality of the audience makes. FFX had the dopey young kid that Americans hated for spending too much time whining about how much he hated his father for no particularly well-explained reason as the lead because the effeminate boy actually played well to the Japanese audiences, while the grizzled, taciturn, hard-bodied hero Auron was immensely popular in the States. Belethor versus Vaan was the same thing (although Belethor was more a gentleman than a hard-bodied hero). Raiden was an attempt to shift the focus of the MGS series from the hard-bodied hero archetype embodied by Snake to the more androgynous and young new character, and was met with total scorn by fans that were attracted initially by Snake, and I think the backlash happened on both ends of the ocean in that case.

It pays to sell to the lowest common denominator. A game like Skyrim takes gob-smacking amounts of money to produce, so they have to sell to a VERY common denominator to turn a profit. They just figure that the wizards out there will see the picture of a guy in iron armor, and assume it means "Fantasy RPG where you can also be a wizard", and they will come trotting along, as well. It's the Dudebros that are insecure in their masculinity that need all the comforting and platitudes and babying in case they have their feelings hurt.

I'm pretty sure mankind would still be discussing it frequently if Cthulu invading had been part of the war of 1812.

This is just a bad anology; you seem to be going out of your way to defend Skyrim here, even to the point of criticizing legitimate points. Not only did you pick a lousy war which caters to your point (as one could simply mention the Napoleonic wars, which are of the same period yet still get talked about) but there is also simply no comparison between any real-life war and a near-apocalypse. There is no excuse for there being so little seen or heard of the Oblivion Crisis (or TIC for that matter) - it wouldn't have even taken much effort on their part, a few hours time if just done in text and a few rock formations.

I think she meant the napoleonic wars. And I agree. I don't think the average person in Skyrim would even know about Umbriel. Maybe it was near-apocalypse, but at the end it didn't touch skyrim, and it is fair to assume that most of people there weren't even aware of it. ok, maybe they have; but then again, there was a great war after that, in which legions from skyrim did take part; this will be more remembered; but, again, vaguely and rarely. Also don't forget that education, or "historical education" is not as common as it is today in our world. I assume noone studies history in skyrim schools (maybe the nobility).What knowledge people might have is from older peple (elvs who have been there) or some vague references, books, etc.

(bear in mind I don't have skyrim, so I don't really know what was or wasn't mentioned )
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Although this probably only serves to reinforce negative stereotypes about my country, I would point out that a very large majority of Americans actually don't know much at all about the Napoleonic Wars, and definitely do not bring it up in everyday conversation, with the exception of a few very rare history buffs... and even then, the American Civil War is probably more their cup of tea, anyway. Even in the example you give, there would be little reason to expect the layman to have anything meaningful to say about it.

Nords are just... colloquial.

*cough* Mehrunes Dagon quest *cough* Sheogorath's dialogue *cough* numerous new books *cough* Alduin's Wall *cough*

Problem?

Ive been here since the earlier days of morrowind (and have changed my name/account over the years)
being a modder I love mods that add things from lore to the game.

Race mods that add the different varieties of Khajiti, and other non game featured lore based races

just as om sure there will be a mod that will add a couple ob gates here and there.

when bethesda ignores the lore in implantation, then the modders and the lore crew need to take the tools they give us to mod to implement them.

I'm disappointed they didn't add more dremora types, because they are a great modder resource

Actually, I just thought "hm, what was happening 200 years ago? Wasn't there some war in 1812?" and used that. Despite taking AP history (US and world), I can't tell you what the hell the War of 1812 was about without googling it (didn't it involve America and Britain again or something?). Napoleonic wars are more descriptive in title, so I can at least take a good guess at what they involved, but I sure don't talk about them on a daily basis.

Real life near-apocalypse would have to be the atom bombs at the end of WW2, and, despite being a huge thing and relatively recent, we don't talk about them much, either. They'll be mentioned in history books and classes, and we'll probably remember them at the appropriate memorial day, but I'm not going to start talking about them if you approach me on the street and ask me for the news.

I would have loved to see more mentions, books, and artifacts from the crisis, Umriel, Titus I Mede's unification, etc. But I don't think it's all that surprising that they are largely absent.

In Bloodmoon Tharsten Heart-Fang was said to been around for hundreds of years, most likely because of Ring of Hircine. So was his life prolonged by some other magic in the ring and not by lycantrophy?

This a quote from the quest journal:
"Apparenty, Heart-Fang has the Ring of Hircine, and has used its magic to prolong his life and rule the Skaal for generations. Now, he claims I will have to face him in his "true form." "

Just to play devil's advocate, I'll point out that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a topic that comes up in my life on at least a weekly basis, and nuclear weapons in general much more frequently. :spotted owl:

You mean: Nuke it from orbit.

To explain the meaning, origin and spread of that phrase to some one you'd have to cover at least the last 60 years of history and pop culture before it makes sense.

In that sense, yeah the past is showing but it's only indirectly.

What the hell are you talking about? There are several books referencing the event, and a few quests. The only reason the natives aren't talking about it, is because there's a far more recent war within their lifetimes.

It's ambiguous at best. The Circle of Companions have been around for centuries, but we don't know if some of the individuals either died of age or were simply killed off.

I guess they didn't leave a strong impression on you?


The dialog, the creatures, et cetera, I all understand, but I am curious why they didn't make more books, especially since they decided to standardize book covers. Complete histories of the third era are common, but nothing from the fourth? I think "The Great War" is the only book to even mention the Mede dynasty. This is one area where I think Beth really dropped the ball.

Agreed. Personally, I'd have liked to see fewer old books even if they're not replaced with new books - in what way is Arcana Restored relevant to anything?!

I'm hoping for DLC. KotN did wonders to Cyrodiil, and a book or two about history isn't a wild demand.

They got MK to work on that, right? This is just wild speculation, but I wonder if the move of heavy lore to DLC and expansion packs (from what I see) might be caused by some sort of billing issue. Maybe there's some regulation or union thing that makes it more difficult for game companies to higher freelance writers for main releases?

Nords are the type to tell stories. i'm not asking them to tell me what happened in Cyrodiil, I'm asking me to tell me about the Nordic heroes of that day. Surely there were some, Nords are the kind to run from a fight.

It's still a bad anology. Again, short of Cthulu coming we've got nothing we can offer as a comparison. WW2 was a big event for us but it's nothing like a near end of the world. You can argue that it (or the Cold War) had potential to end the world, but they didn't get nearly that far and are thus bad examples.

I can't say I'm surprised by the lack, I just don't think it's excusable.

I'm not comcerned about books or people reiterating to me what I did in Cyrodiil, I know what I did in Cyrodiil, I want to know what the Nords did in Skyrim. Where are their ballads, their folk stories and their statues to Fjal Fire-Eater, the first Nord to emerge victoriously from an Oblivion gate.

If these things are indeed present and I simply missed them feel free to direct me correctly, it'll make me happy and you the victor, so win-win.

DLC are less financially risky than a full game. A DLC uses 99% already-existing resources that take plenty of man-hours and money to create, and are sold for $60 a pop, but DLC takes mostly a bit of unusual design work, some lore fluff to make it seem new and unique, and gets sold for $5 to $15 or so.

This enables two things:
One, you can take a risk on making a lore-heavy addition to the game that will please the lore fans without really turning off the Dudebros who are only into killing things who already gave you their money for the original game. Even in the DLC fails (like, say, horse armor), it doesn't particularly hurt the company, because it's not like they invested nearly as much time or money into making a DLC as a whole game would.

Two, the people most likely to buy these DLC are the committed fans who are most likely to eat this lore stuff up, and when given the bait of some shiny new lore lures, will be much more likely to bite on the bait, just so that they don't miss experiencing the lore firsthand.

EDIT:
Actually, a third: Bethesda games have modders. You can't just add in horse armor and expect it to sell when the modders have already added in a rideable Akatosh, bear, dreugh, and flying pirate ship model that they are giving away for free. Lore, and the ability to make their lore "official canon" is something that modders don't really have the ability to touch, though.

On the other hand, Tamriel seems to get Cthulu'd every 20 years.

I'd say it was because of the magic of the ring, or some intervention on Hircine's part. There's nothing to suggest any of the Circle members had prolonged lives (I'd think something like that would be mentioned quite often, since it would be rather abnormal), and Kodlak was dying of age, which is why he was desperate for a cure.


Says it all. It wasn't lycanthropy that extended his life, but the ring's magic, which also happened to let him change into a werewolf. We don't know if he even had lycanthropy, and didn't just use the ring exclusively for it.

Touche, but not really. Jagar Tharn went pretty much unnoticed, hardly a dramatic scene. The Warp of the West was confined to the Iliac Bay. Dagoth Ur was shut down before he could even really expand much outside the Ghostfence, much less outside Morrowind. Alduin is isolated to Skyrim it seems, and is also shut down before his feet are too far off the ground. The Oblivion Crisis is the only apocalyptic event that we can look to in Tamriel's history, especially on such a large scale (both on damage done and the fact that it occured everywhere).

Edit: Btw my first line isn't meant to sound nearly as sarcastic/harsh as it reads - I only meant that it sounds like a good point at a glance, but doens't actually hold water.

Ever see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War"?

In it, Robert McNamara talks about exactly how close the Cuban Missile Crisis came to actually ending the world as we know it in a nuclear fireball, and breaks down how dangerously stupid and bull-headed he and the rest of the White House had been getting that close to nuclear annihilation because they simply lacked empathy with their Russian counterparts.

Meanwhile, nobody really thinks the Cuban Missile Crisis was all that dangerous after the fact because, hey, we lived, didn't we? Couldn't have been that serious. I mean, it's not like our leadership were really about to be willing to nuke the world just because they were unwilling to reach a political compromise.

Potential is irrelevant if nothing actually happened. The crisis was averted, therefore it cannot serve as an anology. If it had managed to result in a half dozen nukes being deployed, then you could use it.

On the contrary, the event you are talking about only "almost" destroyed the world. The event I am talking about only "almost" destroyed the world, and as such, was downplayed to the point of nearly being forgotten. How is this irrelevant?