You should be watching movies. I'm not even sure I believe you.

In normal games, it usually is Gameplay>Lore, but The Elder Scrolls isn't a normal game series. The lore is so immersive and intense that it grabs ahold of you and you're forced to read it. It's almost like reading a book. I can't tell you how much I wish I could even if it was for one day, visit Tamriel. That'd be the best day of my life, I can guarantee that. Now if the lore was generic, then I wouldn't care, but it's not. If I could walk through the steampunk dwemer ruins or delve into the ayleid ruins or visit the White-Gold tower or something...

Edit: Modified Post

You know, before Morrowind came out, way before, the official stance was that you would not be able to play as beast races, because the beasts were slaves, official lore. However, once the designers figured out a way to animate the beast races, suddenly they were back in, and freed beasties were all over the place. That is an example of technology directly influencing Lore. It has happened with just about every game, especially with the way magic works. The mechanics of magic and the possible effects have changed in every game. Look at the passwall spell. Or flying/levitation.

The lore, as far as I see it, has more to do with the history and culture of the world, not the mechanics of the gameplay system. Every game plays differently, and presents a slightly different view of Tamriel. Guilds function differently. Scales change. The way we interact with the world changes. the way we use magic, and the magical effects change. Each game is told from a slightly different perspective, so the details are not exactly the same. technically, the reason for these variations are because of the technology avaliable at the time, the changes the designers make to gameplay systems, and the overall art direction the designers have for the game.

However, I like to view each game as another perspective on the world. So each view of this world is through a slightly different lense, so there are differences in how everything is presented. Just as five people can witness the same event, and experience in five different and unique ways, each Elder Scrolls game presents the same world in a unique way.

Additionally, as we have seen, Tamriel's lore is open to interpretation. Almost every major event has differing opinions on what truly happened. This makes it much more fun, and more immersive, as it is a more realistic approach. There are multiple sides to most stories.

So in my mind, adding new spell effects and abilities, as in controllable fire balls, or elemental shaped spells, is not contrary to lore. It's more a matter of is it fun, is it cool, and does it add to the gameplay? Magic is much like our technology, it is an evolutionary system, and as people's understanding of magic in Tamriel improves, then perhaps new insights into the way magic works will occurr, and we will learn things like not everything summoned comes from Oblivion, or that shaping a fire based attack in the form of certain creatures has beneficial effects.

I would say that lore is not completely binding, Bethesda has in the past proven that they're willing to change lore to suit the needs of their game, I mean, Cyrodiil was supposed to be jungle until we got Oblivion. Now, I'm not saying this was a change for the better, I'd really have preferred jungle Cyrodiil to generic fantasy Cyrodiil, but still, it's an example of Bethesda changing the lore to suit their needs, and there have been ones before it as well. And who knows, maybe we'll see more in Skyrim too, but on the other hand, I doubt Bethesda is going to completely change everything in the lore. We're not going to suddenly see Skyrim turned into a tropical vacation paradise or lots of crazy new races added, nor are we going to see guns or what not, I'm sure. In the interest of maintaining series continuity, Bethesda probably won't completely ignore existing lore, is you just start doing whatever the hell you want regardless of whether it fits with the series canon, then there's no point in even claiming the game takes place in the same setting as past games in the series. So I'd imagine that when adding things to the game, Bethesda does stop to consider how well they fit with Elder Scrolls lore, it's just that the lore isn't really some kind of unbending iron law, more like a guideline, sometimes, it's okay to bend some of the rules a bit, or add new things, after all, if Bethesda never added things that weren't established in previous games, the current Elder Scrolls lore we know would never have existed at all, seeing as much of it was written in games that came after Arena. And I'd say that if anything, the Elder Scrolls leaves its lore more open for bending than other games because whereas many games which try to built detailed worlds have information not available in the main story introduced in "Word of God" fashion, the Elder Scrolls usually favors in game books or dialog, which are old told from the perspective of in game characters or the authors of those books, assuming they don't appear in the game, sometimes, the same game can have multiple accounts delivering different takes on a certain matter, each of which conflicts with another. A good example is exactly what happened at the Battle of Red Mountain, did the Tribunal actually kill Nerevar? Some accounts say yes, some say no, and we might never know the truth. This sort of thing provides a lot of fuel for discussion and speculation, which is probably why there is a reletively active lore forum for the Elder Scrolls. What some seem to forget when it's convenient to do so is that this also leaves Bethesda a little more room to change things, because they can just say the old information is wrong or outdated or whatever. Not that this necessarily justifies all changes, and usually, when you do make major changes to the lore, it's a good idea to add some kind of explaination for it, because if your game takes place in the same setting as it's predecessors, it's usually a good idea to maintain some form continuity, because when you start ignoring continuity entirely, the results are often not pretty.



And I would never play such a game, I would on the other hand gladly play a game with great gameplay but a boring story. After all, if I just want to experience a good story, I can read a book, I don't need to spend money on a high-end PC or current generation console to do that, and speaking as a whole, books have better stories than games. But gameplay is something books don't have, neither do movies, another medium that can tell some great stories, really, it's what makes games well, games. You know, that's why it's called gameplay, because it's a game, and you play it, and if the gameplay is bad, then the game is bad, no matter how great the story is, it can't change this. Not that I have any objections to having a good story in games, if I can experience a good story and still get entertaining gameplay at the same time, then that's even better than just good gameplay, and really, the two aren't mutually exclusive, and if you're going to have a story in your game, you might as well at least try to make it decent. Really, if the story is all you "play" games for, then what's the point of having gameplay at all? Might as well just make the whole game one giant cutscene from start to finish, you'd get the same thing out of it, and no need to waste time on trivial things like gameplay.



No, it really doesn't force me to read it, usually, I only read whatever lore relates to the story I'm folllowing, or a book that catches my eye, although some of the parts of the lore are pretty interesting. But still, I've seen better, and worse too, and for a game, the Elder Scrolls has pretty detailed lore, and that's a good thing, it's just that when you look at most games on the market, that isn't really saying that much.



I was under the impression that it was because players complained, which would make it more an issue of Bethesda realizing that players did not want things to be the way they intended to make them at first. Which may also explain why they ended up suffering from limitations due to not being able to wear boots or full helms and not getting sufficient bonuses to make up for this, as if they weren't originally meant to be playable, there would have been no need to make them balanced well in comparison to other races. But maybe I was just mistaken.

As far as magic goes, though, I'd say the way it works in the game is already a product of gameplay mechanics, I mean, there's already clear examples in lore of spell effects that are not available to the player, and I strongly doubt that the ways in which spells work are really supposed to be limited to the current system of on self/on touch/on target with only variations in the spell strength, duration and area of effect. If anything, I'd say the current magic system is a product of spellmaking. Bethesda needs a system that makes it easy to allow players to create custom spells in the game, hence the current system, if that's the case, I'd actually say they should just remove spell making. Letting players create their own spells is kind of pointless if all the spells they can create are boring anyway.

Which there isn't any.

There is no lore which prevents technological advancement.

There is for stuff like conjuring water horses and dragons made of fire.

OK


Every game needs as its minimum good game play. Right? Yes. Minimum.

I think TES has great gameplay. Sure conjuration could use some work, well the magicka systme could. But I think that if it's not daedric or undead it should stay out conjuration personally.

Yes i do believe so but i mean what do you need to say that they won't show. Whatever new technology they are using im sure there will be enough magic and armor and swords and monsters to show it off. for one thing this post is not nearly as descriptive as you need it to be. This is very generic and i beleive you caused kalarn confusion but from what i have read he is the person who gets the big idea here. w/e ur thinking about i probably don't want it because it will conflict with the lore probably. Because the only kind of things that would conflict with the lore that i can think of is summoning giant armies because thats too much strain. your going to have to be more descriptive about what your talkin about. Because what defines a "really awesome" thing in the game and in the gamplay. what part of the gameplay. talking to npcs? combat? melee? magic? physics? the water dynamics? do you want them to make giant monsters that previously did not exist? what are you referring to. if you could clear that up you would get what you wanted from this post.

Well, first I thought it was conjuring water horses and fire dragons. Then I thought it was fireballs shaped like monkey heads and icebolts shaped like bananas. Then I thought w ewere back to the beginning, to be perfectly, I've been confused from the beginning.

Lore ain t an impedment for technological avance.

I wouldn t play a game with bad gameplay and great lore, wait take that back i have played text games because of awesome lore.
I wouldn t play an awesome gameplay game with pityfull lore, wait i ve played FPS...
This is bull.

The problem with dragonshaped fireball and water horse ain t the lore its the fact that its a bit patethic and a Pandora Box.
One will want a dragon water to ride the other will want a fireball shaped like his cat or Darth Vader and another will want his magic rod looking like a Imperial troop Blaster or a M16 or a Ridike battle weapon.
So those are a no go!!!! Keep it simple, keep it great and leave a way open for fanatic moddoes to shape the fireball into a masculine genitalia if they feel like it.

Lore aint an impedment for anything as long you don t do Blizzard move of bringing orcs from the space a la Spacemaster just because they lore design are lame and need such an excuse to introduce a new race to a world.

As long the main aspect of lore core ain t touched, things like slavery, invocation, evocation, necromancy, gods etc can be moved around in a future tabletime as long past coherence is preserved.

So this discussion is quite vain IMHO.

OBS: On another note it is note rare that an universe grown so much bigger than its creators. The greatest example of it is George Lukas VS Star wars. He got pissed because his fan created much bigger and interesting universe than he imagine. He took his ball out of the game after being flamed for the lame episodes I,II,III. and since we have no hope of books movies or games anymore.
Who wouldn t like to see a Tie fighter/Xwing/bwing game brought to today tech with a great plot ?

Well, lets face it - Lore is important, especially in a role playing game(!).And obviously lore is meant to be bent and expanded.Would you like to play a game with a never changing universe? I don't think so.For me personally the lore is extremely important, but so are the game play and the content.They must focus on the main quest and make it really epic this time, and add more variety (factions/landscapes/dungeons), and enchant the game play even further.I'm one of the older gamers around here, and I can tolerate bad graphics over good ones.But I cannot tolerate boring and repetitive game.So in my humble opinion, they must fix the things mentioned above, and they will create the perfect Elder Scrolls experience.

I love lore but i also love a good game

You can find different ways to explain different things. For example while it may not be a dragon made out of fire, it might be a fireball which resembles a dragon or has a fiery mouth thing. Could be explained by an illusion spell. Mages of past have done wondrous feats of magic and an illusionist convincing someone that a fireball which has a mouth is heading towards him and causes burns all over his body is not too far out of the imagination. After all the brain controls the body and if the brain is shutting down because it thinks it has been blasted by a fireball then that's ok in the game.

As long as things are done with an acceptable exaplnantion within the lore then it's fine I think. There is always room for compromise and eventually that is how lore is build. There is no spell within the game for capturing souls over a whole island after they die of whatever cause unless they are in holy ground but in the game Redguard that is exactly what N'Gasta the local necromancer did.

Also vampires in Morrowind and Oblivion weren't hurt when entering holy ground ( also define holy by each race) but in Daggerfall they did

Similarly there is no spell for impersonating a whole emperor in the game but that is exactly what Jagar Tharn did.

different mages according to power can perform different fears. I mean as long as a mage doesn't suddenly conjure up a gun and start spraying bullets on spaceships with green men then that's fine (Mind you the lore suggests that spaceships exist and that's how the Aedra came down to the world, see Ada-Mantia tower) . As I said (and as the Ancient Greeks said) "all within good measure"

well maybe the statement of being forced to read the lore is not for u. I agree with him. Once i play a game i am absolutely forced to read all the lore just to fully understand the world. And thats within everything i do. If i hear something come out a civillians mouth im looking it up. If i visit sheogorath im looking up every daedra and aedra. Im looking up all their spheres and every daedra they control. I'm looking up eveyr game that had this daedra then im looking up the story of every game. And its perpetual. In oblivion i read pretty much every book avaialble in that game of course i dont remember alot of lore since i have not been playing recently but i enjoy the lore more then the game play itself. The lore to me stands alone. If you do not feel the same way then you dont have to comment on what he said about being forced to read it. Because you may not have been but alot of players have. I am absolutely in love with the lore of these games. Thats half the reason i even play it otherwise if i wanted pure gameplay i'd go play halo or something. But Elder Scrolls brings the depth of a book into the game. And if you dont think so read all the lore or more of it. The lore of elder scrolls consumes the video game world we play in. i Love to see how lore manifest itself within games. for me its lore > game but i want to have good gameplay cuz if it doesn't i'll just read the lore and not play teh game much.

I'd say those could have been done with Oblivion's technology too, or even Morrowind's, though they'd probably look better in Skyrim, and even so, technological advancement doesn't necessarily mean these things. New technologies just allows designers to either do things that weren't possible for, or make them look, sound or behave better than before, what they use those technologies for is up to them. Just because the developers don't do everything anyone could possibly think of with the technology available to them does not mean that they're not using new technologies at all. And lore aside, some might argue that conjuring horses made of water or dragons made of fire would be kind of silly, I'd certainly say it would feel out of place in the Elder Scrolls universe, and violating the feel of a setting, I'd say, can be a greater offense than being slightly inconsistent with previous lore. After all, just like real life, fictional universe can change over time, one nation might fall or a new one might rise, or new technologies might be invented. Maybe even the very laws of science, or in this case, magic, once held to govern the setting will be proven wrong, but in general, violating the feel of a universe can often be much less forgivable. Of course sometimes, a sequel can go for a different atmosphere from a previous game, it might try to be darker, for example, or lighter, but the usual cliche seems to be to try to make sequels darker, probably because the creators think it makes their games seem deeper and more mature, but back on topic, sometimes, these sorts of changes can be good, sometimes, they're bad, but regardless, I still generally expect some aspects of the games in a series to be consistent. If a sequel to a horror game is all bright and colorful, it's going to look pretty out of place, and I wouldn't want magic to suddenly appear in Fallout, even if the writers somehow managed to make it make sense, which I'd say would be impossible, but even if they proved me wrong, I wouldn't want it. This is also why I don't want to see guns in the Elder Scrolls, technically, I don't believe that the lore would not allow for them to exist. If I want to play a game similar to the Elder Scrolls that has guns in it, I'll play Fallout 3 or New Vegas. In short, even if lore allows it and it would make for fun gameplay, Bethesda still needs to ask, would it feel right? Though I'd say that this should actually be asked before whether it fits the lore or not, if it doesn't fit the feel of the series, then one doesn't even need to think about whether it fits the lore.

I believe you are. :wink_smile: :wink_smile: Although you do bring up good points about them not being as balanced as the other races. We were told at the time that technical limitations were excluding the beasties from being included. The lore just happened to back up their exclusion. When those technical difficulties were overcome(no doubt due to the many complaints, as you point out), the lore took a back seat.

I don't know. There were armies of Daedra that the Ayelids sent against just about everyone. One thing about TESV Lore is that while its past is set, its future is yet to be written. It isn't like Tolkien lore, for example, where the single definitive author is dead and any additions are revisionist by nature of their very existence. There are new events and circumstances yet unseen and untold which could alter the state of affairs and even of the mystic and physical rules currently governing Mundus/Nirn and Oblivions planes.

Technology does not excuse breaking the game's lore. Just because video games these days can have cars in them that drive really well with realistic destruction, does that mean that Elder Scrolls should?

Game designers know what they want to make when they start a game. Technology is simply a tool to accomplish those tasks. Now, I think I'm going to go watch a children's movie, and contemplate why they didn't drop a nuke on them because they could.

Was wondering why the beginning of this thread was so friggin' hard to understand. What's this discussion about, specifically? The topic title is kind of... nonsense to me.

I think they won't do it for many reasons. Just because you can do things doesn't mean you should.

You might think that "dragons made of fire" or "horses made of water" are cool, and would fit with the Elder Scrolls, but you also have to realize that the developers might not agree. Not even necessarily because of lore (they create, and play with it you know), but because it's just something that they don't find a particular interest in.

Jimis, you got some crazy ideas. They're not bad. Don't think they are, because someone doesn't like it or it's not lore-friendly. I think you need to get a modder to teach you so you can make this stuff optional.

That is not at all true. For one thing George never wrote any books beyond the original series, those were all written by others and they are still being written. Secondly Lucas Arts is still publishing games as are other third party developers. Rumor has it an mmo based on KOTOR is in the works.


Ultimately this will always be the case because it's very existence is to entertain us.

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you lore fanatics but you are far from being in the 75th percentile and though determining the actual number is impossible I could confidently guess that it's lower than 25%. Does that mean your opinion has no value or that the lore should be treated carelessly? Not in the least. I like the lore and do not want to see it miss treated but whatever will be will be. Just omit the "x # of people will react such and such way" from all your future debates and you'll be on righteous ground.

I'm actually more afraid that the technology will hold back the lore.

Such things as the "thu'um" might be really hard to bring in as a gameplay mechanic. Might just be reduced to eye candy, if in the game at all.

Given the amount of lore they've done reasonably well at following (reasonably well, mind you) I'd say they'll continue to foillow that pattern.

That given a choice between grandstanding "way cool junior" flashy eye-candy and nonsense, and keeping to the lore that governs their world, they'll take lore over "oooh, how kewl, d00d!"

See, they know which side their bread's buttered on- and it wasn't "all flash and no fury" gameplay and "neato effects above all else" that got them where they are, it was a profoundly interesting game world with lore that defied, or at least twisted, the standard generic fantasy tropes. They tended to ignore that for simplified "bring in more fans" gameplay in Oblivion, and it got them two things: a lot of new customers (who now want to continue the "neato trumps substance" trend) and a lot of flak from their existing fanbase who want to know what the hell they were thinking when they threw TES out the window.

I suspect they're not going to make the same mistake again...but I have been wrong before, you and your fellow "[censored] the lore, I want kewl gameplay and to hell with everything else!" fans might well be the series' future. In such a scenario, TES woudn't be the first series watered down to the point of ultimately destroying itself trying to please everyone and be everything, and losing its own identity in the process. :shrug:

Alois, don't say that... The Elder Scrolls won't water themselves to Tolkien. Look at Shivering Isles, it's a sign of new hope. And I think Todd Howard cares more about the fans than the people here for graphics. I kind of wish LeFay still held a position of power, it was his baby. Skyrim will be the omen. Of prosperity or doom...