Two, whole new set of animations would have been required. If you don't like that, then know the Red Legions hated spears and crossbows as much as jungle.

Hasn't stopped modders from making it work in OB, with animations.

There actually was a tradition of carrying huge spears amongst Cyrodiils jungle bandits in a fashion reminiscent to the hoplites from the slave revolt. This tradition and the use of spears in general has become outmoded ever since Mahrukh was ambushed once. He asked his assailants what they were compensating for. Promptly they dropped their spears and lifted up their sarongs too prove their manhood and were subsequently slaughtered.

What info is this from? I'd like to read this.

That's all there is. I took the hoplites from the http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/songofpelinal.shtml.

What about the Maruhk bit?

It's Monkey Dung. Good dung by the reaction.

Hah. Indeed.

Impulse wants me to say "it was just game mechanics," but then I remember that if mods can make it happen (and they have), it couldn't have been an impossibility. I am now thinking that it might be one of the products of Bethesda's streamlining of the game. For example:
-Gauntlets now are a single unit instead of two.
-Pauldrons are fused to curiasses.
-No long/short blade differentiation.
-No medium armor.

Now remember back to Morrowind. One of the things I really, really, emphatically, completely despised about that game was that Long Blades had a clear spot of prominence over all the other weapons. There were a lot more of them, they all did more damage, and they had Trueflame and Hopesfire, two of the most powerful weapons in the game. They even outdo the Hunter's Spear from Bloodmoon. So from Bethesda's view, they're just getting rid of unnecessary features by removing spears.

Crossbows, I'm not sure. I liked the crossbow a lot. But again, I see a Bethesda-streamlining aspect here. The main difference between Morrowind's longbows and crossbows was that a longbow had a range of damage (say, 1-30) if it hit, whereas the crossbow would definitely do a certain amount of damage (say, 20) if it hit. Because Oblivion did away with the roll-hit system in favor of the contact-hit system, the longbow-crossbow choice became merely an aesthetic one. From a game mechanic standpoint, they would be equal. And so, Bethedsa nixes crossbows, because apparently you can't have a fantasy game without longbows.

I'm not at all happy with that decision. Heck, in Morrowind, most of my combat-oriented characters use spears, and the marksmen use a crossbow. But what's done is done. From a lore standpoint, there is absolutely no reason for a lack of those weapons, unless Bethesda comes up with an ex machina to explain it in the next game.

Your theories fall apart when you consider that Morrowind DOES have crossbows, it's Oblivion that doesn't, and the reason for it, in this case, is indeed purely a matter of game design. There is no lore explanation for it. Even if one assumes that crossbows were some form of lost technology, which seems unlikely, given that they weren't exactly rare in Morrowind, even if they did only go up to Dwemer quality, I find it unlikely that there is any justification for spears not existing in Cyrodiil.



Obviously it's NOT that it couldn't have been done, most likely, Bethesda simply wanted to, as you say, streamline the game, or just got lazy and didn't want to bother with another type of weapon.



Anyone can also fight with a claymore in Tamriel, or really any weapon. While your effectiveness with a weapon is determined by your skill, the game does not have any skill or attribute based restrictions on what sort of weapon you can use. So anyone being able to pick up a bow and use it may simply be a matter of gameplay mechanics, alternately, there could be http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidNotDoTheResearch.

Some people want special bows that take too long to load and need special arrows called bolts. M'aiq thinks they are idiots.

For the same reasons Sutch wasn't in it.

I actually use them quite a lot. They're very effective weapons early on when longblades are poorer quality, and give you the defensive capabilities of greater range.

Isn't it likely the "streamlining" came from making the game to fit on consoles? Why else so many cuts? All that haphazard VA and graphical bells and whistles needs space in memory too. And you've only got so much on your next gen console (at the time).

It makes all of the skills evenly distributed. Equal amounts of skills for each of the three disciplines. That's the reason. It was streamlining the character process so that all characters who played could succeed relatively successfully. Its also why Blade and Blunt skill perks are the same. Mirroring gameplay so that people don't feel like they're missing something.

I mean, you don't complain that you have to switch weapons once your staff runs out of charge instead of just whacking people with it.

But having non-mirrored gameplay leaves room for making each combat style feel more unique. Missing something is what adds replay value.