Honestly, I don't think that we'll ever see guns, grenades, cars and motorcycles in TES. That's not what I'm worring about.

Speaking of which, I'd like to hear rumors of purists claiming allegiance to the long defunct Mage's Guild, trying to regain it's power against the new established monopolies - sorta like the competition between the Mages Guild and the Telvanni in Morrowind, or between the Fighters Guild and Blackwood Company in Oblivion (the downside there being that you couldn't side with Blackwood).

Races of the Elder Scrolls can create technology when they need it, and use magic to do the rest. And I'm not even talking about the Dwemer. The Blackwood Company had a machine that drained the sap from a Hist Tree. The Dunmer created the Ingenium, a machine that kept the Ministry of Truth afloat by absorbing souls. Anything Bethesda needs a race to make, they will make it, and find a way to explain it with magic.

Other than that, though... the fact of the matter is that the Dwemer advanced to the state they were at because they had a very clear goal in mind that they needed technology for. NONE of the existing races have the kind of goal that requires technology. Therefore, a new race rapidly advancing technology makes no sense. You aren't going to see the development and widespread use of steam, because none of the existing races need steam for anything. The same goes for any other type of power source. Unlike the actual human race, the races in TES have no need to develop more advanced technology. And the suggestion that "It may be a hundred or two hundred years since the last game!" means NOTHING when you take into account that the history of the TES series stretches back thousands of years and yet widespread technology has stayed relatively the same. More advanced technology simply doesn't make sense.

Yet if you look at our own society's technology curve you would see relatively little advancement for millennia and then a ridiculous increase starting around the industrial revolution. Imagine where our own society will be in two hundred years time when you compare current technology with that of the 19th century. Rates of innovated change, and BGS can do with it as they please.

But we have already seen flying machines, robots, and teleportation.

Compared to the course of human history they've already hit on some of the really major points, stirrups, crossbows, steel, and steam power. honestly that puts you about to the industrial revolution. Add electricity and gunpowder and you're squarely in the modern age (personally I'd argue that the dwemer had electric technology -- seen in incandescent lights throughout their ruins -- it just saw limited use in the face of magical power sources).

not for me. I prefer the concept of magic and bow / sword for TES and weapons for fallout :shrug:

Apparently you chose to completely ignore the fact that I countered that point already by saying that absolutely no existing race has any need or desire to advance technology. The Dwemer did, but now they're gone. Every other race has goals that do not require technology. For Bethesda to introduce advanced technology that is widespread they would have to completely alter the goals of a race of their choosing and then set a game far enough into the future that more advanced technology would make sense. If Bethesda has any respect for lore left it will not happpen.

So what tech advancements do you want to see?

The Dwemer are gone so they can't make anything, you don't want any steam-tech or electrical devices. No cars, no ciggs no tech from our world.

So what in the WORLD do you want to see, because this isn't making any sense?

And don't you people jump out with the good ol': "The developers can think of something", because it's YOU that want to see those advancements, so hit me with your ideas.




Why would you compare real life with a made-up fantasy world with wizards and Vampires...?

Soooo... you want the march of Tamriel's lore and history to resign itself to the predictable ebb and flow of daily life overlayed with the same old cycles of power and discord interspersed with the occasional cataclysmic event? Every new super weapon will be based on some forgotten relic that world has inevitably seen before. The surge or conquest shall be tallied by the size or armies and never again by advancements in warfare. The tides of battle and scales of economy will only be tipped by the sweat of the brow and the stacks of parchment outlining unholy rites and bargains taken to sway the favor of the gods.

I doubt that Beth will do such a radical change of genre in the series. Well, what's the point with changing TES in Fallout ?

Tech. Evolution don't have to result in a genre change, because not every product that brings the evolution forth, will mirror these things in your world / universe, too.
Things may differ.

The Atlmer of Summerset sunk an invading army of Maomer instantly... with magic. The islands of Thras were submerged beneath the ocean... with magic. All but the highest peaks on the continent of Yokuda were destroyed when the Yokudans learned how to split an atom with a blade. New superweapons are not needed. MAGIC is all that is needed. MAGIC creates superweapons, MAGIC is a superweapon.

I'm just saying that the developers will do as they please. It's their game.

... And new magic, magic that is developed, tested, refined, and built upon is, by definition, technology. I tried to imply before that technology is not limited to the microchip, the steam engine, or the spacecraft. The stirrup was a innovation that allowed the Mongols to conquer over half of Eurasia, and shifted the balance of power from the east to the west, setting the stage for the meteoric rise and fall of the roman empire soon followed by an age of innovation that has grown steadily and indeed accelerated to this day.

The act of innovation produces technology, and without it, the annuls of history will lay bare in the present.

I never want the elder scrolls to feature the internal combustion engine or the transistor, but a Tamriel that that sees no new astounding, awe-inspiring, magical or physics based technology is almost as bad.

Innovations in magic will come, of course, as Bethesda sees fit. More advanced technology coming from that magic wont happen for reasons I already stated, namely that no race has the need or desire for it. And any advanced technology that does come from it will be used very sparingly, as Bethesda has done in the past. My argument is about technology on a widespread basis. I am talking about turning a candle into a light bulb for every house on Tamriel, not the kind of technology we would find in a Dwemer ruin. I don't care what Bethesda does when it comes to technology with very limited use, such as the Ingenium and various Dwemer creations. What I am against is the attitude that technology should visibly change, i.e. every town in every province is full of new technology, and not isolated to a Dwemer ruin.

And you completely ignored my point that BGS can change the necessity of invention as they please, and so speculating on the necessity of anything is an exercise in futility.

Not only that, but there are several facts of Tamrielic life that are so far unexplained. How, exactly, does a nation with absolutely no apparent industrial food production feed the Imperial City (or any of Cyrodiil's major settlements for that matter). How do the farms that are there cope without any kind of irrigation? Is the survival of the people of Cyrodiil completely dependent on the weather each year? Sounds to me like they need some irrigation and windmills.

Technology is necessary in Tamriel just to explain what the people already have. Conjuration is not capable of conjuring food and water as far as I know, and the majority of people only hold a pathetic command over magic. Technology, however primitive, is the answer to these issues.

^This.

It isn't like the TES world is devoid of technology. There is the Dwemer tech that in principle is available to be further exploited. I don't think the question is one of "technology" as much as it is one of "industrialization", that is, "How pervasive should the utilization of technology be in a TES society?".

I'm not sure if you're aware, but there have been quite a few TES games before Skyrim, and they have contributed to something called lore. And this "lore" is quite extensive, believe it or not. This lore sort of prevents Bethesda from saying "Okay now the entire reason this race exists is to develop technology!" instead of what their goals were in the previous games. Lore is kind of important like that. Bethesda has changed lore in the past, namely, changing Cyrodiil from a jungle to what it was like in Oblivion, however we had never seen the entirety of Cyrodiil prior to that. We have, however, seen each race on Tamriel in multiple games, and their motivations discussed in-game as well as in multiple in-game books, and changing their goals to such a degree would be a tad harder to pull off.



So what you're saying is that things like irrigation and windmills do exist, but we haven't seen them? So then putting them into a future game would not be advancing technology, because they've already existed, we just haven't seen them because Bethesda didn't bother with those little details. I have no clue how you think them showing us how they've been doing the things they've been doing all this time will advance technology if it's been there all along.

Yes, I admit that I am coming off as quite the lore elitist. I'm sorry if having some respect for the integrity of the lore that has been established up until now makes me an elitist, but if it does, it does. The world of Tamriel can change drastically without advancing widespread technology, as evidenced by the events that took place in the time between the Oblivion Crisis and the events of The Infernal City. Those changes were largely political in nature, but nevertheless the setting is quite different now than it was in Oblivion. I understand if you don't want the setting to stay stagnant, but guess what, it hasn't, and it didn't need technology to do so.

If you truly need to see technology in TES to enjoy it, if you truly can't enjoy the setting without wondering why technology isn't developing, please go play another series instead of trying to alter the setting most Elder Scrolls fans have come to love.

NO!
NOO!
NOOO!

I love the setting the way it is...no lol the suggestion makes me mad :banghead:

Antibody, I think you're misunderstanding the extent to which I would see technology advance; how quickly I would see it advance; what mediums of the franchise I would see it advance in; how much I respect and love TES lore and why I want to see technology advance. I'll address these points in order.

• To clear up one thing straight away: guns, airships, engines - all of that is too far advanced technology for the TES universe. I recognise that, and I would not see technology evolve to that point. What I would see is a bit more physics ingenuity among the engineers of Tamriel. ie. irrigation, watermills, windmills etc - things that existed in our own universe millennia ago. Better farming tools (oxen drawn tillers and greenhouses for example), better medical implements (bandages, tweezers, suture kits) for when alchemical ingredients are not on hand. I fail to see how this kind of technological advancement would compromise the TES setting. As well - like you pointed out - I would see more presence of things that must be there to make what we've already seen of Tamriel possible. If BGS had had a year or two more on Oblivion I would have liked the Imperial City to have an industrial sector where clothes are fashioned, Black Horse Couriers are written en masse, glass and metal alloys are produced. This is not an advance of technology per se, but a better detailed world. If you are against that then I really don't think we're going to come to much agreement.
  
• I do not want a Fable style leap in technology. IF technology were to improve in TES I would see it creep in, with the reactions of the different cultures and people of Tamriel becoming a main point of subject matter for the respective games. My stance is not "I want lots of technology because I want to bend the TES universe to my will". It is "I think it would be absolutely fascinating to see how such a deeply established universe would react to small integrations of technology".
  
• One of the first things I said in this thread was that I would not see technology evolve much, if it all, in the main TES instalments. Rather, I think the evolution of technology and Tamriel's collective reaction to it would make fascinating subject matter for a spinoff. It could even be non canon. It could even be a book. It could even be made by someone other than BGS if it was a game at all. People here seem to be assuming that technology cannot be explored within the TES universe without compromising the good thing BGS has going with the main instalments. I think that that's an incredibly narrow minded and knee jerk reaction to the idea.
  
• I adore the TES universe, and I want to see it all. I want to go to High Rock, the Summerset Isles, Elsweyr, Valenwood, Black Marsh and Morrowind. I want to see games set in all of these provinces, and I want to see games that go back in time and look at Alessia's revolution or Tiber Septim's rise to power. But because the TES universe is so big, so fascinating and so strongly established I think it would add a whole new dimension to the universe to get a peek of how it would react to the expansion and evolution of technology. Read: I do not want to see a transformed Tamriel. I want to see how Tamriel would transform.
  
• I think I've addressed why I want to see technology advance, but to reiterate: I only want the tiniest of advances to be made, I want how Tamriel reacts to these advances to be important subject matter and I simply want more justifications explicitly shown for how the people of Tamriel remain fed, clothed and housed in such luxuries considering what we've actually been shown so far.

Good thing you aren't a game designer.

You have to finish it.

"Good thing I'm not a game designer, or............"

Go on...

I am all for more detail, but of course that is an entirely different argument, which is whether or not Bethesda should bother with those details when there may be things they could better devote their time to. But we probably shouldn't get into that argument as it's kind of off-topic.

Are you saying that people who want to see limited technological advancements in TES do not respect the established lore? :blink:

To make a good game, it takes both... old and new things to combine into the game world.
I'm currently studying computer science at the university and I'm visiting a course in game design, too.

No, my statement stands as is. You said it's a good thing people who don't want new technology introduced into TES aren't game designers. You said you wouldn't mind spin-offs of the series that introduce new technology. I then said it's a good thing YOU aren't a game designer. See what I did there?

I don't want to see new technology introduced into the series, nor do I want to see any kinda spin-off introducing new technology.