I hope this is a troll. And what is it with spears? While more weapon types would be cool, why do all of the Morrowind junkies think spears are the best weapons in the world?

From a real-world historical standpoint their lack is kind of glaring -- the spear was the footman's weapon, the sword that of the noble. For me, seeing bandits with spears would be more natural than bandits with swords. From a TES standpoint, though, that doesn't necessarily hold true and the spear probably presented a variety of problems.

One person's favourite medieval weapon is another person's nightmare on a stick. Honestly, you can argue against that when crossbows basically replaced the bow and arrow and became the ranged weapon of choice for the medieval army. Interestingly, the crossbow was continued in use well into the 17th century, until they were completely replaced by smaller, more accessible fire-arms. They were primarily used to replace the bow and arrow due to their ability to penetrate plate armor, because of the unbelievable pressure built up from it's unique cocking system, but it was not the only weapon capable of doing this. In England, bow-craftsmen developed the English longbow, which was also able to penetrate plate armor AND was able to shoot more arrows than a crossbow in any given time rate... however, that too was abandoned after the standard ranged infantry soldier was able to carry a fire-arm. On the other-hand, there have been multiple reports of people using both weapons in combat even into the 20th century... weird, I know. A little off-topic, but there is one man that I know of who used a longbow in World War II. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Churchill, used a longbow to kill Nazis in the war... and won!! That is pretty freaking cool.

So, yes, "longbows" were better than crossbows in many ways - which I'm assuming the longbow is the primary form of bow in Skyrim, even if they aren't called that - but they lacked the accuracy, range, and power that a heavy crossbow held. Granted, the longbow was pretty freaking powerful... able to penetrate plate armour after all, but the heavy crossbow was even more powerful. That said, as far as the crossbow being unworthy of a place in the weapon roster, that is complete horse crap. Now, if a game like Fable can throw crossbows in... I'm pretty sure that Bethesda can make it work for their game. The reason why crossbows and other - theoretically - easy to create conventional weapons are not in the game? Laziness is my best bet... or not enough time.

It's the same reason why there are mods for mounted combat for Oblivion, yet Skyrim is said to STILL not have it in the default product. Why add horses in a medieval themed combat role-playing game when there is no mounted combat? Transportation, sure... but that is a pretty weak reason just to have horses in the game. Might as well give us a donkey to ride on. It would serve the same purpose and definitely would NOT be able to hold it's rider in combat. I've never heard of a war-donkey before... XD

Other than being more powerful and having more range, as I think any issue regarding accuracy is rendered null in a video game trying to simulate medieval ranged weaponry, I can't think of any other reason to throw crossbows in... which just as well might have been what the developers were thinking themselves. But at the same time, there really isn't a reason NOT to throw them in, and they would honestly make a lot of people very happy, myself included.

All in all, though, I'm a fan of traditional archery in real life and I have NO problem using the bow and arrow. Still, it would be nice to have crossbows... though, if I had to pick a crossbow type of choice, I would really prefer there to be a miniature, one-handed crossbow. I think for a game like Skyrim, which pulls elements from Fallout 3, it is definitely do-able for theoretical, one-handed medieval ranged weapons such as the miniature crossbow. I mean, they already have handgun animations for Fallout... they could have easily transformed that into a one-handed crossbow. Considering that this is a fantasy game and not a historically based game... they could really do anything they like with weapon types. They could also say that crossbows weren't even invented yet, or never will be, although that would be kind of weak. Someone SOMEWHERE along the line would have to develop some kind of crossbow. Plus, weren't crossbows in Morrowind? I'm pretty sure they were... I could be wrong, though.

As for spears... come on, spears are the most primitive form of weapon used in combat. Your basic foot-soldier is going to have a spear... and not just foot-soldiers use them either, GODS themselves also favor the spear. Odin? Who is from a culture that the Nordic race is based on... has an almighty, magical spear that talks to him. There is no reason not to have spears in this game, and, if there isn't, all I have have to say is...:facepalm:

It was decided that X-bows were too X-treme!

:violin:

The part of the problem with those weapons is that TES is a single player game and both weapons were designed to be used in groups..

One guy charging with a spear vs 30 guys charging with spears.
One crossbow vs 30 guys with crossbows, some firing, some reloading..

And yes, the same could be said about bows, where most of the power came from rain of arrows and not precise shots but you can't leave out everything.

That being said, I would love for spears and xbows to be in the game.