So I started with Skyrim and have pre-ordered ESO. I'm mid 40's so I began gaming with paper/dice RPGs like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons long before PCs were capable of anything beyond little square blobs for graphics. I've played Skyrim for over 570 hours with several characters now. So I'm sure I don't have as firm a grasp of the lore as many of you veterans so maybe you can help me out. Earth's real Middle ages lasted around 1,000 years give or take a hundred or so depending on which historians you side with. Shortly after that period (or at the tail-end) you had various forms of fire-arms begin to emerge and the sword/bow as dominant weapons slowly died off. So unless the inhabitants of Nirn are somehow "slower" intellectually/industrially than us what is taking them so LONG? Now don't get me wrong I'm not wanting to use guns in ElderScrolls I'm just questioning (and trying to understand) the Lore such as it is that has ESO taking place around 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim. The art and videos I've seen of ESO seems to show the same relative weapon tech as we enjoyed in Skyrim. With THAT much time passing I would think ESO would at least lack forged STEEL or Skyrim would have had rudimentary firearms. Or something. Some sort of natural progression/regression. Or am I not accounting some sort of natural/unnatural cataclysm that set things back?

Again I may well be lacking some Lore Knowledge that explains this since I have not played the previous games.

Well, people generally take to the elder scrolls because it is a fantasy IP, and advancing it into an industrial era would make it lose a lot of appeal for anyone that has played it before. ESO also takes place thousands of years before Skyrim, Skyrim is the farthest in the timeline.

So I should just not worry about it?

But you get what I mean here dontcha? Makes it a bit harder to suspend one's disbelief even in a fantasy RPG when reality went from bronze and iron swords to steel swords and then to gun powder in about 1,200 years....and were trying to pretend this world is stuck in that loop for 2-3 times as long?

I think maybe the writers should have made these eras MUCH closer together.

Yeah I thought about that too....could be a possibility. It's kinda weak though.

Elder scroll don't take place in the real world

Some chance firearms don't work, might even be that they had tried them but the early muskets was pretty not very good weapons, they took long time to load and was extremely inaccurate.

They had three benefit, they was easier to use than a bow and was better at penetrating armor than a crossbow, high end armor in TES is probably better.

in TES why not use an destruction staff or cast a spell. You also don't have many mass armies with half trained soldiers who made firearms an winner.

Note that other technology is more advanced, the sawmills in Skyrim uses an 16-1700 design, They have good printing press as books are cheap and everywhere, windows has glass.

Dwemer would likely have known about it and perhaps even used it or easily could. Of course they went POOF! Could be a tech discovered at any time if the devs so decide.

I want to point out that gunpowder is NOT industrial age tech. WARNING! This may blow your mind:

Gunpowder on earth was invented long before plate mail was invented!!!

Played Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura?

I played a half-orc with magic allergy. Was wonderfully fun.

This may be difficulty to believe, but the inhabitants of Nirn are fictitious characters in a series of video games who are designed and maintained in a specific way for our benefit.

I'm aware of when gunpowder came about...I'm just saying firearms in the forms of usable pistols and rifles started appearing at the tail-end of the Middle-Ages. So by that mark Nirn is somewhat behind.

Sooooooooo.....THAT explains it!

End Thread.

I guess we can imagine our own reasons for this. Perhaps the Deadra magically kill any advancements in that direction? Afraid we will eventually out-gun them? Similar to the Dwemer example as Demane pointed out.

If all you've played is Skyrim (the most vapid and watered-down title in the series yet, lore wise) you've only scratched the surface. Especially if you read the books in TES:III : Morrowind things get reaaaally bizarre.

People being brought back from the dead, people being made into demigods (just gods?), an entire species disappeared mid-battle without any explanation. Gods flipping out and cursing entire groups of people, gods being killed, summoning entire planes of existence just to dike around, compelling the mortals of Nirn to do messed up stuff to each other just to dike around.

Levitation is also core to the universe before IV, with the Telvanni growing all their buildings out of magic trees with vertical hallways they magically float up. I think the Dragonborn expansion had a pre-scripted spot where they carried on that canon. Teleportation too, with organized groups of mages performing it as a service. It cures all diseases save the blight summoned by Dagot Ur, an evil demigod, heals all wounds no matter how grievous, and it can even make you smarter.

By the way if you liked Skyrim you should play TES:IV, the complaints are mostly with the leveled-list system in that game being un-intuitive. It's still a great game if you understand how that works, and all the stat systems of all the games have been un-intuitive in ways.

I mean I could see guns being added to the universe without causing it grievous harm, but it's probably a style choice more than anything.

I am not suggesting traditional guns, merely that it could have interesting uses in Dwemer tech ... something alien to other races and could create intriguing stories.

If the technology was there, it would most certainly have been utilized by the dwemer.

In any case, everyone knows what happens when you add guns to an Elder Scrolls game: You get Fallout!

This.

Lore in DnD forgotten realms setting is kind of the same, thousands of years of relatively the same tech.

If you could enchant a base metal and make it incredibly durable and sharp would the necessity for more advanced alloys be needed to the same degree?

Technology advances because of the need for it. We come across a problem we create a solution, no problem no solutions.

If magic existed it would be likely technology would not evolve in the same way, if it even did beyond a certain point. Medical aid, transport even crop harvests being solved with the wave of a hand would have an enormous impact.

Nirn also seems to have a lot of conflict for the landmass covered, and I mean a LOT.

Why would they need guns? There are materials of armor far stronger than steel and thus probably more resistant to bullets. Cannons, the proto-guns, are useless, because of mages. On a ship? Hire a mage, he can A) conjure wind to sail, B.) conjure water if you get stuck or C) set an enemy ship on fire from afar or use ice to punch holes in its hull.