I just noticed in the editor, Fathis Aren's tower (where you get the arrowhead for the theives' guild) is named the Temple of Emperor Zero in the editor. I wonder what someone at Beth originally had in mind... Goes to show someone did in fact read the PGE.

Ay wouldna know. Them devs-folk don't come ehere no more.

:(

Something that would've added to Cyrodiil's culture, which as we all know was clearly a big no-no.

I can't figure out if that's a typo or a dialect.
Damn the internets.

It should be pointed out the the first PGE is hundreds of years out-of-date.

Thank god the events and politics of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution aren't relevant today, or the world would be really, really confusing.

No, it's just hundreds of years old. Emperor Zero was only just being celebrated when the PGE was being written. It's not unfathomable to think a cult and a temple might have survived. Tiber Septim's worship certainly endured. Unless you consider that and the Temple of One, the Moth Priests, the Blades and everything else still surviving into the modern era as a blatant and troubling anachronism. Whether or not it's out of date doesn't matter, really. It adds flavour and should have stayed.

The CS holds many secrets from the early development of Oblivion, such as the infamous "CountySutchDocksixterior" cell, or the "ImperialVilla" (among countless others) -like them, it's almost certainly something that was either planned and not finished, or somewhat developed then cut out due to time restraints.

The lack of original lore from the 1st PGE in Oblivion makes me sad and dissapointed.

But that was lore from the 2nd Era.

I'm not trying to stir up conflict here, I'm just trying to point out that the 1st PGE detailed how Cyrodiil used to be centuries ago.

Yeah so? I find highly unlikely that in one era, the entire jungle of Cyrodiil faded away and was replaced by forests. I aslo find it hard to beleive that the Colovians integrated with the Nibenians so well that they are indistinguishable, since the Colovians were fiercly independent.

The change in foilage could be attributed to a climate change; either the same one that made Atmora uninhabitable, or possibly the reactivation of White-Gold Tower when Tiber Septim recovered the Amulet of Kings. Mankar Camoran did mention Cyrodiil as being "once-jungled", so we know it was a jungle previously.

As for the Colovians and Nibenians, a lot can happen over 400 years, especially when we're talking about humans.

A lack of dialog due to not wanting to bloat the voice acting budget too much is no excuse for a lack of lore, with all the books in the Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda could easily have added more lore in the form of books, that makes more sense than conveying all that lore through dialog anyway. In real life, you generally don't get into an extensive discussion about history or the reproductive anatomy of cat people with a random stranger. You might occasionally sit down and discuss recent events with your friends, but the rumors do that pretty well.

In the end, the truth is that Oblivion did not add a lot of lore to the setting, it added some, Mankar Cammorans beliefs, for example, but it still was not nearly as large a contributor as Morrowind, I like to just leave it at that and appreciate the things that I do like about it, but since this topic is specifically about the lore, it does seem possible that there was a time when Fathis Aren's tower was meant to be the Temple of Emperor Zero, but for some reason or another, that was scrapped during development, and it became just a ruined tower with a mage living in it and one quest involved, it could also be that it's actually the ruins of what once was this temple, after having fallen into disarray, it was adopted by Fathis Aren as a home, either way though, the game doesn't give enough information to do more than guess.

I just deleted a lot of sniping. If you want to pull that kind of crap, do it via PM's, not here on the board.

The jungle defoliation is explained by http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/many-headed_talos.shtml. In other words, Tiber Septim used CHIM to retcon it into a temperate climate.

I never said that the lack of lore wasn't unjustifiable; truth be told, I would have preferred it if they added more lore in more books. But at the same time, there isn't as much lore to make as with Morrowind, because Morrowind's lore was a huge step ahead of Daggerfall. But there wasn't as much to add regarding lore, because Morrowind took care of a lot of it. And they did give us the guides to the cities.

Which, although descriptive of the cities' layout, was written in a dogmatic tone that more often than not inspired homicidal rage against the author.

Of course, it's not like Morrowind had any less bias in a lot of its lore. But that was more of a cultural thing than one person.

So because Morrowind created Cyrodiils politics, culture and religion and that because of that Oblivion doesn't have to flesh out any of it. I really would like to have your copy of Morrowind then.



There is bias and there are bigoted opinions. They're not the same.

I actually got two copies of it; the original and the GOTY edition.

Morrowind gave us vast amounts of lore, many of which on Imperial history and religion. Oblivion did flesh it out, although without the sharply contrasting cultures in Morrowind; just because there isn't cultural contrast doesn't mean that there isn't culture, it's just less obvious.

Aside from that, Morrowind's politics involve five Great Houses of contrasting ideals constantly clamoring for control over the nation, often violently. Cyrodiil, on the other hand, has two cultures, even if there wasn't much room to depict a contrast, and I doubt it could be anything like in Morrowind anyway. Cyrodiil is more united, or at least less divided, than Morrowind; it has to be, or else the Empire would have fallen apart. The counts don't need to meet or bicker, because they all have their own domains given to them.

And while I would have liked to see some politics regarding the Elder Council, I suspect that a lot of the things that they meet about happens behind closed doors anyway, especially during the Empire's rather fragile state.


Morrowind had no shortage of bigoted citizens either.

There was supposed to be a nobility faction involving the Elder Council, where you become the new Count Kvatch and eventually Duke of Colovia. But they cut it out and now Ocato sits all alone in the Council Chambers.......

A few examples of Nibenians who look down upon Argonians are not a fleshed out culture, they qualify as comic relief at best. The existence of Nine has been known for a while now, but we still hardly know anything about how they are worshipped or what it even means to worship them to the Imperials. Romans glorified their legions, but how do Colovians and Nibenese view their legions? There are no mothers who weep for their sons. There are no fresh recruits being trained. The PGE and Morrowind suggest Cyrodiil is an Empire of traders and merchants, but where are they in Oblivion? Where does their economy get all the income from? Everything suggests the Empire is milking it's province yet you see nothing of it in Cyrodiil.

I could go on and on about the missing basics, but why don't you tell me where is all this background on Cyrodiils culture in Oblivion. Perhaps I took the wrong exit in the sewers that lead me to the cartoon version of Cyrodiil.

It could happen.



Cyrodiil had two cultures that were described as almost diametrically opposed in all areas. Yet you doubt that there will be any contrasting ideals? Right.... I clearly can't argue with that. Perhaps you didn't notice but the Empire was falling apart only 6 years ago in Morrowind. Cyrodiil isn't the land of Sunshine and Harmony that was shown in Oblivion.

Neither are the people who inhabbit the land of Sunshine and Harmoy natural. You just have to look at medieval history to see that a feudal system where people are given complete control over an area in return for their allegiance to the King is anything but peaceful unless there is a strong, competent King on the throne.

Without an heir to the throne there will be generals, counts, politicians and just about everybody else with a grain of ambition look for a way to get higher up. Yet in the land of Sunshine and Harmony these people pull up their shoulders. If they did it because they expected the gods would appoint some one, then we'd have the scraps of culture. But they didn't even do that.

I would summarize this as a lack of depth. Nobody gave a second thought to what Cyrodiil would be like if it was a fantasy world with real people. Not just the backdrop to a series of unrelated quests lines.



Had the devs set out to do such a thing, I'm sure that wouldn't have been an insurmountable difficulty. Ceasar had no problem at all marching his centurions into the Senate either when he declared himself dictator for live..



Unlike Ottus however their attitude didn't make them stand out as being abnormal. It was part of the group of people they belonged too. Another thing Oblivion lacked.

How could Bethesda do this to Oblivion? It seems unthinkable after all the effort Morrowind had......why couldn't they do the same here?

Sad isn't it. When I think of what Oblivion could have been...... How sad.