because at the end of the day - Skyrim is all about hack and slash - the pics in GI certainly (in my eyes) reinforce that.. hopefully when E3 rolls around, we'll see how magic is implemented into the game.

still gonna buy it though - I'm getting burned out by FO3 & NV

How do you mean, lame? It was the Force itself! :teehee:

There were in-game books that dealt with, and refuted, that very statement, in a lore-consistent manner.

Read: Mysticism, found in Morrowind and oblivion.

I play an Altmer, and the removal of how the mage's guild understood the old way practises from Skyrim has me a bit worried.
But maybe the Synod or College of Whispers, or both, have found a way to incorporate it into other schools of magic. Therefore fortifying them as well as ingraining it into the very basics of magic use, in wich case I shall be delighted.

Which explains why they make sense together in lore, but doesn't change the fact that mechanically the school is utterly schizophrenic and has no consistent identity.

I think removing Mysticism may have been a short answer to a bigger problem, but I suppose they thought an easier solution was best.

I'm going to miss Mysticism, but every since Morrowind it had been getting worse and worse (then again, that is the devs fault, of course). It was always a dumping bin for all the spells that didn't seem to fit in.

But perhaps we can get some more solid definitions of all the other schools so we can have some more interesting spell structures going on.

But for roleplaying purposes lore outweighs how the game actually physically works.
You dont observe the phases of the moon either when alchemising, as you would if you were really in Tamriel.
But I roleplay I do.

I never used Mysticism all that much, but as others have said, I'll miss it from a lore point of view.

Eh, it doesn't really screw up the lore. Books in the past games made it clear that the different spell schools are artificial constructs mages use to organize the various spell effect, not any sort of intrinsic structure to magic. Hell, I recall there being one book where a mage is calling for Destruction to be gotten rid of, and its spells distributed amongst the other schools.

Very well put. I think what we might end up seeing is enchanting actually get spells. If one thinks about it, enchanting sort of fills that role of a method built around working with magic itself, so soul trap, reflect, spell absorb, and dispel would most likely have a place there. Telekenesis will probably get moved to Alteration, statistic draining already was moved to Restoration, and we have no idea if teleportation is back or not (hopefully it is).

Maybe some powerful God reached out into the world one day and said "Hey, wait a minute. This magic system is full of spells that don't make sense or fit together at all! Whatever, look from now on, just learn about that stuff when you're learning other magic stuff" and so then the people of Tamriel were like "Sure whatever, dispel never works anyway.".

You're missing the point.

The Elder Scrolls is a series of role-playing games. That last bit is important. Just because your role-players are willing to forgive pretty much anything if it makes lore sense doesn't change the fact that you have to abide by some basic rules of good game design.

Why are there separate "schools of magic?" To allow the player to specialize in a specific school. For this to matter, the schools have to have some kind of mechanical identity. It has to mean something to be a Conjuration specialist, as opposed to a Restoration specialist. Each school has to do something.

For the most part, each school does do something. Destruction destroys, Restoration heals, Conjuration creates, Alteration alters, and Illusion deceives. Mysticism doesn't do anything. It's the grab bag, the magic school equivalent of the drawer marked "Misc."

In an ideal world, you could create an identity for Mysticism. It would presumably revolve around screwing with magic in various ways - spell reflection, spell strengthening, enchantment, counter-magic, dispel effects, the works. You'd also have to remove some of those abilities from other schools. Even then, though, it'd be a pretty limited school - great when fighting mages, pretty much useless in any other circumstances. Bethesda obviously chose not to go down that path, and the game isn't necessarily worse off for it.

Also, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Enchanting had replaced Mysticism as a magic school with associated spells.

Mysticism also does something.

That you cant see what it is, doesnt mean its not there. The leaves on the tree do not move themselves, it is the wind.

But, as I said, I have hope that the College of Whispers or the Synod, or both, have simply incorporated Mystisicm into the other schools, wich would be a fortifying act because it would reinforce the other schools with the old way.

Verb, please.

My ONLY issue with losing Mysticism itself is that, because all the effects would be moved to other schools (until I see them I can't be totally sure about this complaint), that means I may have to go into 2 or more other magical schools to get the original feel of Mysticism.

What was that "fee", you may ask? Well, if anything, Mysticism was a mage's grab bag of useful tools and goodies, especially in Morrowind. Teleportation got me where I needed to go to. Soul trap allowed me to fill all my gems up for enchanting and recharging. Reflect, spell absorb, and dispel were great for hosing mages or creatures of a magickal nature. Absorb spells were just the bees knees and were ruthlessly efficient for a rather cheap early game cost and extremely good spell failure ratio.

In essence, Mysticism was my swiss army knife of the spell schools. In situations where other schools had no chance of helping my, Mysticism came riding in on a deformed horse made of spare parts, but damn did I praise its name regardless.

Now all of those utility spells will have been fed around to the other schools. Perhaps I'll just have to focus on Alteration instead for my do-all magical school.

Im sorry, I dont understand?

You want a verb? Eating, is a verb appropriate in this case. So is Cycling.
Because it seems Alduin the world eater is stirring and we are due the next kalpa.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that we're talking about lore.

Precisely this. As long as the spells still exist in some way nearly everything else is reduced to semantics. I also love the idea that mages, like real world scholars, argue over systems of organisation and the definition of 'isms'.

AS LONG AS THE SPELL EFFECTS LIVE ON IN OTHER SCHOOLS, AND THERE IS SOME IN-GAME/LORE EXPLANATION AS TO WHAT HAPPENED TO MAKE THE SCHOOL NO LONGER EXIST AND THE SPELLS TO GET SENT ELSEWHERE, I DON'T GIVE A XHUTH.
That is all.

From what I can gather, the spells probably still exist, in other schools. Since there are now two magic groups (or there were at the time of the novel) it makes sense that the always inconsistent morass known as "scholarly opinion" would be changed.

First off, the schools of magic are artificial constructs, set up by the Mages Guild to simplify spells, in a way.

Second, mysticism was the spell school where all the ??? and misc. spells went, so it's not something to be missed.

So wait they got rid of Mysticism thats awesome if it's true. Mysticism was the worst of the 7 schools of Magic. The only good thing about it was Detect Life, Soul Trap, and Spell Absorbtion and all 3 of those magic groups can be used with Enchanted Items. I think its a good move but I wonder what they will replace it with and the skills.

If they get rid of another skill I vote Athletics. :wave:

plenty of people used it... i constantly use detect life.... reflect damage.... soul trap ALL the time...

They almost certainly have just moved those spell effects to different schools, rather than getting rid of them altogether.

More like 'Misc.'-icism, am I right?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I accidentally almost typed "Mysc" at some point in a previous post. It's an easy typo to make.