No child killing - Bethesda would actually like to release the game in several countries.
Immortal characters - originally done to prevent quests breaking from characters getting killed due to the more complex AI (ie, letting you have a chance at quests in case characters got killed on their own, without you being able to prevent it). This applied even to non-MQ-related quests, too. We have no idea how many characters in Skyrim will be immortal, although one of the magazines said only MQ-related ones will be, and one of the sound interviews had the guy mention that we'd be able to . So, it's looking good that we'll have far fewer immortal NPCs than Oblivion.
Quest givers migrating - Only for certain quests. If Bethesda doesn't set up the quest to have someone else give it, then killing the giver will lock you out of it. We have no idea how often this will be employed, but only one example has ever been given so far. And regardless of how many quests use the technique, there's only a limitted number of NPCs that could give it, so it won't be an endless supply.


You get the decoded package before ever seeking out the Ashlander tribes for the MQ, and that says the Emporer was using you because you fit the Nerevarine prophecies. Caius mentioned before he left that he was supposed to aid you to make the locals think you were the Nerevarine, but he started thinking that perhaps the prophecy may be true (*gasp* a prophecy being true in a fantasy game! who'da thunk it?). The opening movie lays it out that a prisoner with an unknown past will be the Hero, and that's exactly how you start. Then you learn that Nerevar was supposed to reincarnate as a great hero to the Dunmer's current troubles. 1+1=2? It would've been a greater twist if it turned out you weren't the Nerevarine.

How, exactly, is this any worse from previous games? Not to mention, I don't think it's been stated that all dragons are evil. One of the magazine articles does mention that sometimes you have to go out of your way to goad a dragon into a fight. The dragons are an enemy, but we don't know that they're the enemy.. like the Daedra were more-or-less the mindless bad guys in Oblivion, and Mehrunes Dagon was the big-bad, but the Mythic Dawn was aiding them and was, to me, the game's true "boss". The Light The Dragonfires end quest was more of an epilog with a surprise ending. So far, we know that there are dragon enemies, and there are undead "Dragon Priests" that guard certain places. We don't know anything about the story, the dragons' motivations (we may be able to guess Alduin's motivation, but being that he's a god and the dragons we face are flesh-and-blood creatures, we don't know how they're tied together), or why it's now happening and what can be done to stop it.

Just in Seyda Neen, there were heaps of choices all of which your character could justify to themself and all led to some outcome.

Do you give the ring to Fargoth?
Do you give the dead tax-man's money to the Census office?
Do you arrest the tax-man's murderer or let him go?
Do you give money to that Imperial looking to leave Morrowind?
Do you take Fargoth's hidden stash or give it to the Nord loan-shark?

These decisions are what role-playing is all about, living in a world and making decisions, not letting the game choose them for you.

In Oblivion most of the quests seemed to be fetch this for me from a dungeon and if they had any choices it was a split good and evil and your decision would be simply based on what type of character you wanted to play.

Well, then... I've yet to figure out what the point of this topic is.


It would seem to me that, if one were to make a claim of moral ambiguity in any game, they would at least make certain that it was a game which was rather universally accepted as having had moral ambiguity in the first place.

There hasn't been any PLAYABLE moral dilemma / Main Quest option kind of a situation in The Elder Scrolls series since Daggerfall! Even then, our choices were limited to 'Do you want to hand the Mantella over to this person, this person, this person, or this person?' followed by a summary of how wise or unwise your decision was. Is that really what this last four pages has been about? That little bit of choice?

Because to be honest... I'd rather them spend some time to write up a better plot... than to be given a last-minute choice like that.

What difference does it even make, in the end, when they just retconned any decision you made out and created "The Warp in the West" to cover for it?


The important things I would like to see... are meaningful quests which not only affect your standings with the faction you're doing them for, but with those whom you might end up acting AGAINST in the process. I would like to see the same DEPTH of plot for whatever guilds and/or side-groups there are to join... only without the INSULATED feeling of them not really having any effect on the world around you.

If I'm the Grand-Master of "So-and-Such"... then dammit that ought to MEAN something, somewhere else!

These are the kinds of things that I'm worried about.


If they come back and say: "Hey, we changed our minds, you can blow up the world too... if you want!" I'll be fine with it. I always enjoy having the option. But they won't... because then they'd have to program an entire scenario for "Hey, what if the player decides to HELP the dragons win?"

That's more work than game developers of the current generation have time and funding to do.

It's just a sad fact of life.


Everything else in this topic, however... from "Ooh, I know I'm the hero" to the argument about whether or not Morrowind set you up to save the day openly or secretly... it's all irrelevant. That has nothing to do with the moral ambiguity at all, except for as to point OUT the fact that there isn't any. And that there won't be any, until the time comes when games can afford to do crazy things like have two vastly differing, sand-box style campaigns for you to playthrough.

We're talking some serious man-hours here. They called Oblivion... what was it... 300-hours plus?

Just imagine if they had let you join the Mythic Dawn, and gotten in-depth with the nuances and lore of THAT faction? They'd have almost that entire 300-hours of playtime to do all over again.

It's not feasible. It's not practical.

And most importantly... it'd take time away from things like adding depth to the places and people and things that really matter.

Colonel Tannanbaum, you're talking something different than what the OP is talking about. You're talking about quests. The OP is talking about lore. Here are the OP's words: "...attention to background lore, conflicting accounts of history, political powerstruggles and characters that can't easily be labeled." The OP is making the point - and I think correctly - that the rich lore informing Morrowind's quests added ambiguity to those quests, ambiguity that was lacking in Oblivion's quests. He was not asking to be allowed to join the Mythic Dawn or to be offered multiple endings, he was asking for lore that deepened and enriched quests and NPCs.

I'll give an example I brought up in an earlier thread. We do not know for certain that our character is truly the Nerevarine. For all we know the Empire and the Ashlanders could be falsely proclaiming us to be the Nerevarine to serve their own shifting political interests. Our characters might be nothing more than convenient imposters caught up in a regional power struggle. Then again - maybe we are the Nerevarine. There is evidence to support both positions. And I think that is the kind of ambiguity that the OP is calling for.

Bravo. You perfectly summarised what I was inarticulately trying to express.

The "good guys", who you're helping to save the world from Dagoth Ur, turn out to have been the ones responsible for the death of the original Nerevar. "Yeah, we killed you last time around, but no hard feelings, eh?" The dualistic good/evil nature of the most apparent Tribunal member is a recurring theme in the literature, and is mirrored to a degree, or at least taken for granted as "normal", by the Dunmer as a race.

Dagoth Ur has what appears to be a valid assertion that he was protecting the "heart of Lorkan" and the "tools of Kagrenac" from the Tribunal under your "predecessor's" orders, and despite how it has twisted him, his original motivations may have been at least partially sincere. He was apparently once a close personal friend of your "predecessor".

The underlying conflict between the Great Houses and the Ashlanders is revealed to some degree, with their cooperation and subsequent betrayals. The primitive and barbaric Ashlanders hate the settled Dunmer for a reason.

The guilds have a few rivalries, and one faction has infiltrated at least two of the others, leading to conflicting quests and the eventual need to "take sides" as you advance in them.

One of the Legion quests has you obtain something which you can get by force. The solution is brutal, plain, and simple, unless you REALLY look hard for another answer. At least one FG quest is of "dubious legality", and if you ask the right person, he'll recommend another option. At least two MG quests have you retrieve or take something, despite the potential consequences; If your character can't manage them without killing, it's your decision.

In Morrowind, there are few "black and white" answers or motives. Most parties had good reasons for doing what they did, and in many cases, both are at least partly to blame for the situation. Even the Morag Tong, professional killers, had hidden motives and a religious angle to what they did.

In contrast, the Dark Brotherhood (in both MW and OB) just seemed to lack any plausible motive or reason for existing as a faction. In MW, they were merely an add-on with the Tribunal expansion, and poorly integrated into the game world. The Mythic Dawn faction in OB seemed like nothing more than an empty charicature of a faction designed to provide "generic bad guys", aside from a few good lines delivered by Mancar Cameron at the end, and it was central to the main storyline.