There's the topic title.

For me, learning about the dwemer in morrowind was an amazing experience - especially finding those machines in the caves.

In oblivion, I learnt everything I could about sithis, did you guys know that sithis was the first ever deity. He/she was the nothingness before creation from which all life came. I am a genuine sithis worshipper in game! XD

Well, I've only been playing since Oblivion (*preps for :flamethrower: *) and though I tried to learn what I could, I found that most of the history of the Elder Scrolls universe was contained within in-game books that were a chore to read. I would have much rather been told stories by NPCs, or seen evidence in dungeons and what not (I realize the elven ruins did that to a certain extent) so I'm looking forrward to that kind of...I can't beleieve I'm about to use this word...immersion..in Skyrim, where I can learn a lote more about the world and it's history from the characters than I even could from reading in-game books (though that practice looks to have been nicely improved).

Wow, that's awesome that you read so much of the Lore. I really enjoyed exploring the Dwemer ruins, and loved fighting the machines, but I never read much of the lore. Skimmed the books etc. that I came across, but never got as indepth as you seem to have. It seems a lot of people did the same as you though - wonder how much I missed out on by not reading all those books...

Vital. The lore is what makes TES an experience, a setting, a valid work of fantasy deserving of greatness alongside the greats of Middle-Earth, Discworld and Westeros instead of just a sequence of "go here, kill this" quests and buttun pushes.

Love TES games, but I find the lore (for the most part) somewhat uninspiring.

I didn't get that much into it until my second playthrough of Morrowind, and then I suddenly realized the main quest story was actually pretty interesting! Doesn't happen that often so I guess I wasn't expecting it. I have a lot of respect for the TES lore.

Normally, I just use the lore as a basis for what I can or can't RP, like I don't want to do anyhting too crazy or random or unlore-istic

Occaisionally something in the lore will make me research more, but not often.

To be honest I didn't really pay much attention to the lore in my first playthrough of a TES game (morrowind). I did however pay large attention to it on my second playthrough fro both morrowind (spent the time reading EVERY nook I'd find) and Oblivion (made it an 'unmarked' quest to read all the books in the "Imperial City Library" [a mod]).

LOL. i never read any of the books. they were just an additional source of income.

I was hugely into lore in Morrowind, but I didn't find Oblivion interesting enough to keep the interest. In Skyrim, things will be different though, I will read everything I can.

This is sort of my position. I think TES lore is alright, it can be interesting sometimes. However, there's a few other settings I like a lot more in terms of lore, but they unfortunately they don't have open-world gaming goodness like TES does. So I'm not too bothered by using lore-inaccurate mods as long as they mesh well with what I want out of my experience.

Better than Bioware surely?

Depends on the game.

I was introduced to the series with Morrowind, and went back to play through a good portion (all main quest and anything with tangible structure) of Daggerfall. Arena I could never get running right, but since Daggerfall is really just Arena II, it's probably not worth playing now anyway.

So to answer the question, Lore is incredibly important. As a fledgling writer I definitely appreciate the sense of continuity and cohesiveness that the writing in Morrowind had. (Some obvious failings notwithstanding). The lore of the game is the real thread, while the games themselves are individual and vastly different vessels in which you experience the lore. Oblivion unfortnately didn't cash in on the rich lore, and suffered greatly for it. I've always attributed this out of time constraints when working with the new generational hardware of the Xbox360. Maybe that's being hopeful.

That said, I understand that these are games and a writer has to be careful not to "Write themselves" into a corner. The point at which Lore no longer services the game, is the point when lore no longer matters. Things like a City's location or the spells within a certain school of magic are just examples of "Overwriting", backing the developer into a corner by making it impossible to reclassify "Turn Undead" as a Restoration skill, or move Markarth Side to the border region of Hammerfell can (not saying they did) make for a frustrating process of either addendum or poor balance which harms both the developer and the player.

Writing in games also has another obstacle. Literature is a "bottom up" form of interpretation. You read the description of Grendel or Cuthulu and you work up what it looks like, when you see a creature or location in a game, you work from the "Top down", seeing the result but then asking "Why" or "How", in which it's harder to "Hide the cracks" so to speak. An easy, but not so anologous example of this would be Bandits hiding in a tomb, superficially, a stupid choice but laying subtle details like placing the Tomb along a road into town, or maybe a natural cavern system with a grotto gives more data to interpret. This kind of world-writing will come into play when we get into the Dwemer ruins within Skyrim, having to ask ourselves why an often avowed enemy of the Nords has Strongholds within the current borders of the Province.





If you're not going to at least explain how, or give an example, you really shouldn't bother using such pseudo-intellectual terms as "uninspire-ed-ing". To be fair though, having true originality in the post Tolkien/Gygax world is incredibly hard, much harder if you're trying to maintain some illusion of believability. Grounding the game's lore in a typical "Elves and Men" while writing up their own creation stories and political systems is about the best anyone could have been expected to do given the goals. If I remember my Elder Scrolls history correctly, the lore actually sprang up from the early Arena Teams D&D sessions.

I hope in Skyrim the NPCs talk more about Oblivion and Morrowind than they did in Oblivion. Im hugely excited to see how the Dunmer and Nord feels about Morrowind getting pwned.

There lore is somewhat important, although i find it to be a little boring sometimes~ but without it the world wouldnt feel the way it does~ Morrowind had the best lore imo, Oblivion wasnt that great, i hope Skyrim can recapture what Morrowind did~

I like the lore primarily for the reason anyone would like a good story, it's just fun to read. I consider it an added benefit when i notice something in-game that directly relates back to the lore

Lore = TES. No game has better or worse lore than another, they just have better and worse depictions of their shared lore. I'd play TES as any sort of game as long as they stick to the lore.

The lore brings the game to life for me. As a real life history buf, I love finding references to previous games (Falanu Hlaalu cracks me up every time I play) and have spent countless hours reading in game books. The Real Barenziah series is in my top 10.

Dragon Age's lore leaves a lot to be desired. It's basically a few changes on the classic "Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Dragons" Formula.

Mass Effect on the other Hand... Some *noticeable cracks taken into account* It has one of the richest lores not just in gaming, but in any segment of entertainment.


*Notable cracks*
1. "Thermal Clips" my only comment is WTF, they should have just gone with Element Zero charge saturation, with "Ammo" Being the discharge sinks.
2. "Arrival" DLC, which pretty much negates the entirety of Mass Effect 2, since it was always assumed Mass Relays couldn't be destroyed. Granted, destroying one causes an antimatter annihilation reaction that is equivalent to a supernova, but still, nobody cares about the Omega Nebula anyway, least of all the Citadel races.

I like my lore the way I like my History. Parts of both are extremely interesting to me (the various Cyrodillic Empires and the Roman Empire) while others bore me to tears (Metaphysics and the Industrial Revolution).

I love TES lore. I think religion and metaphysics is the most interesting part of it, and I only really care about lore in TES, because it's much deeper and well thought out compared to all other games. What I like best is that there are many different viewpoints of things, and one can often not say that one is more right than the other. This gives room for new theories and ideas which could be true depending on how you interpret things, which is awesome. Not everything is written in stone. I also like the fact that there is no definite or objective "good" vs "evil" system like in other games, but that they are nothing more than social and cultural constructs. One and the same God can be viewed as good in one culture and evil in another. :thumbsup:

I started playing MW when I was like, nine. So that's magnified the impact a bit. It was the first place I was introduced to a few concepts.

Thanks for all the comments on this thread . Glad to see others who feel the same about this series as me.

Tolkienesque yea, I love any fictional universe and it's lore granted it interests me at base.