With all due respect Lady N, as a Bethesda game fan pushing 5000 hrs of gameplay that has yet to finish the main quest of any Bethesda game I have to vehemently disagree with that statement. Huge open world games need special attention all over including general game play outside of any major quests or what's the point of having such a large dynamic world.

I'm not talking about general gameplay here. I'm talking about special mechanics that take new models, code, animations, etc. and that have no direct relationship to the storyline and setting of the game.

Thrassian Plague. Killed a helluva lot of people all over Tamriel. The imperial navy sunk Thras in retaliation.

Not bad.

Understood.

I for one would love to see mechanics added to the game that while fitting with the setting don't necessarily add to the story in anyway though i do believe that all of them could be introduced to the player through quests. I'm talking about, mining, smelting, forging, smithing, fletching, fishing, trapping, skinning, cooking, farming and all done in first person hands on(no menu crafting) like Craftybits. I hold little hope this game play will ever be added to TES though.

I'd say it's more likely they're hated simply for looking like http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/95/others/sload.jpg

You can bet that if you do get crafting mechanics (of any sort) there will be quests based on it. It would also likely accompany a hardcoe mode which would make use of it. In other words, if they do spend time on this mechanic, it will be an integral part of the gameplay experience, not just an add-on.

Seeing that always makes me wonder... Why ANYONE would want to play a Sload! Look at that! That's no epic hero! Hell, I doubt it could even really be an epic villian. Jabba the Hutt does not a Boba Fett make.

is the lore holding the game play back? yes and no. I'm pretty sure morrowind was supposed to be bigger than it was. What I'm trying to say is we do have hardware limitation...If only we could create everything that our imagination can come up with. Well maybe one day we will, but not right now.

I am usually a lore nazi myself, when it comes to games/books/movies that I love. But I do have an issue with two statements that are made in discussions like this:

1. TES is unique
2. Regular fantasy is cliche

I disagree with both statements. That is to say - TES is indeed unique. So is Dragon Age, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings, Ego Draconis, Neverwinter Nights (D&D) and other fantasy worlds. If you know a fantasy world and are familiar with it's lore, it becomes unique. But all of them are also cliche. I love TES, it's not only my favourite fantasy game series, but my favourite game series overall. Yet it's still as unique, and as cliche-filled, as most other fantasy settings out there. Have you guys seen the races you can choose from in EQ2? High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, feline-humanoid and reptile-humanoid amongst others. Someone who had a superficial knowledge of EQ2 and TES would say they seem like clones, down to identical races with similar traits and backstories. Until you start to dig a bit more into the lore, then you see that all fantasy settings have their own twists to it. As I see it, most high fantasy worlds are from the same myth, the same mould, put together first by Tolkien and also by D&D. All of them are cliches, and all of them are unique.

So on to the topic at hand: No, I don't think lore is restricting gameplay. Lore is the framework the game can be developed within. Some lore can be changed or developed to suit the next game installment if necessary, but I actually think it can be easier to develop a good game if you have a framework to go by, instead of starting from scratch.

Everquest and TES are amazingly different.

EQ is in Norraht

TES is in Nirn

EQ is much bigger.

TES has some deeper qualities.

I think you might have missed my point, Kalarn.

I think he was being facetious.

I think I half got it I was trying to add on.

When I say "generic," I mean "identical or very similar to the average portrayal." This is most often synonymous with "identical or very similar to D&D." Generic elves are therefore not the elves of Germanic mythology but the nature-loving, long-haired, beautiful, wise, sylvan beings. TES elves started out as generic elves, but quickly moved onto something else, mostly by subverting the stereotype. The Altmer aren't exactly pretty, and certainly not sylvan. They are also huge jerks who hate everyone, kill their babies if they aren't perfect enough, and want to destroy the world. The Bosmer, though they live in forests, are cannibals who can't harm plant matter (so no art nouveau tree houses). The Ayleids are slavers and necromancers. Aldmeris is a state of mind. The Dwemer are theo-technocratic musicians. In other words, if I had to describe TES eleves, beautiful, nature loving, and wise would be some of the last words I'd use.

They don't even http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1280&bih=592&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=elven&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= http://imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/gallery_files/mw_TAoM_p33.jpg.

This may piss people off, but I wouldn't mind some kind of very basic, overly bulky, not that powerful, slow, Dwemer pistol.

If it were made to fit the lore that is.

The Dwemer were inventors and clearly had some stuff that was far advanced beyond what the bulk of the world had. I could see some sort of gunpowder + small moving mechanical pieces pistol, so long as it wasn't particularly accurate, slow to reload, and weak against heavy armor.

That said I'd probably rather they just not try because it would be hard to make it fit within both Lore and Gameplay. IF it fit within lore it would in my opinion have to be more of a curiosity than a real usable weapon. Perhaps even an unfinished Dwemer Contraption that was clearly (or perhaps found to be through looking through some Dwemer plans nearby it) meant to be a pistol.

Of course with the Dwemer and their metalurgical methods long gone it would never be completed....



I would really like to see some of the other races too, even if just in the form of talk or books or corpses or something. Tang Mo, Ka' Po' Tun, Sloads, those snake guys whose name I forget.....not playable and probably not even encounterable....but present in some manner.

I guess Sloads wouldn't make any sense so ex them out. Maybe Falmer instead. Perhaps a few Falmer still alive...or just exploring their ruins.

I just really miss Dwemer Ruins from Morrowind and I found those elvish ruins a paltry excuse.

They will never add guns. Ever. The polls say they won't.

I'm fine with that, perhaps some other form of Dwemer invention. Trebuchets or those giant spear launching things....inactive of course or tied to a quest.

There were Dwemer in the South Eastern sections of Skyrim weren't there?

Dwemer used crossbows, now they are dead, the end.

Their death doesn't mean the destruction of all of their technology. Crossbows were around in Morrowind.

Don't be over simplistic.

I do not know whether the TES folks are Lore freaks indeed, as I see it very hard to keep a sense of 'universe', if you take that all 4 games do not have that much in common with one another. Orces weren't even a playable race until Morrowind, and Khajiits were not the kitties we now know. It seems Morrowind (I dont know...) tried to spice things up with deeper tales and explanations of who the hell the Dwemer were and why they are no more, and similar s***.

I personally cannot give a damn if orcs or khajiit are gone or if a mysterious race shows up and they are dwarves or not. I believe in general guidelines (for instance, a fantasy world with no idea of gunpowder, guns, flying ships, etc...) for the world where the story is being told, and how intriguing the different elements of the plot are - not if they correspond to 'the Lore' of TES created to explain a few or lot of things.

EDIT: Sorry - that said, I would be surprised if things are not being presented in game if they would somehow change what is here refered to as "Lore". I do not thing that advances in technology meant as different structure styles and different looking weapons / armours or seeing books being somehow pressed in a rudmentary means of production would cause people to be enstranged with the game because it does not fit this Lore thing that is talked about.

The game's lore is essentially the history of the realm. But history is inherently a component of the past, and new permutations of current events can create futures radically different from the past. Predicating the entire plot of a video game only on tradition is very unrealistic.

And in Dragon Age, Elves have more or less the same role as Khajiits and Argonians have in TES: They are viewed as lesser beings, and the city elves live in a poor ghetto, where they are harassed and even [censored] by the high and mighty human lords. So my point is that on the surface, high fantasy is all "cliche", because they use the same building blocks and same elements. The uniqueness lies in how they use these elements. So TES isn't more or less unique than other high fantasy books/games. They all are cliche, and they are all unique. Being a fan of one franchise, it's easy to view it as "better" or "more unique" as others, when they are actually the same (but different).

No one can read their language, and what is known isn't very much. There is a semi-rosetta stone, but it's not enough for what the dwemer were doing.

Crossbows are fine (and not entirely a dwemer invention)

Nevermind. I misinterpreted the thread's purpose.