When Skyrim was first released, it was downright unplayable on PC. You can find articles on forbes and blogs complaining about how horribly optimized everything was. Now, that isn't the case. I was speaking about things in the past.

As we found out later, the textures were scaled down from high-resolution textures, the UI could be fixed (I'm refering to the default one), and other things could be accomodated. Why could these not be included to begin with? The work was already done, the assets were already there. They excluded the textures and there was large uproar, so they added them. The UI was unplayably buggy so they fixed it. And now you take all of this for granted and misrepresent my argument in the biggest fail of a strawman that I've ever seen.


Like I said, all you seem to care about is that people are complaining about something they don't like that you do. Why should it matter to you if we play it or not? What in the hell does that have to do with anything? Why should Bethesda become so Authoritarian and cut their profits? That makes no rational sense (which you seem to be very good at displaying, by the way).

The end implies that the author eats the other guy (or yknow, svcks his blood dry or whatever), but the other guy is seen as a vampire in Skyrim.

Sigh. The DLC hasn't even been released yet and people are already spazzing about the lore? I'm sure Bethesda will put everything into context in the DLC's storyline. It isn't anything to get that upset about.

As far as this forum goes, you can't believe everything you read. Lore is not solid history. By definition lore is "a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth." That isn't anything concrete. It's all heresay. I mean, there is actual lore in the real world tthat says big foot, the loch ness monster, and mothman exist. That doesn't make it true. It simply isn't reliable and shoot be hit and miss. Sometimes lore will be spot on, other times it won't be.

It isn't bad writing to include details that are not true either. The reader just has to be smart enough to assess the source. Especially in a world as large as TES. Bethesda really tries to make it as immersive as possible. The fact that it isn't all black and white is a good thing. There has to be flexibility to every story. Before one considers something a fact they need to either need to witness it themselves or find a reliable source. The lore cited to refute the Dawnguard DLC is not substantial enough or conclusive to write off the new features.

How do you know he is a Volkihar Vampire? If he was not killed by assumed vampire of the story then that vampire turned him and it is assumed that vampire is a Cyrodiil Vampire.

"I haven't fed in seventy-two hours," I explained, as I fell on him. He did not land the first blow or the last."

LOLOLOLOL, Was it not clear I was being sarcastic? *Sarcasmdetectionfail*

For the thousandth time....

If something is meant to be fact and accurate? Then it's presented like Immortal Blood or the Book of the Dragonborn. AKA, it is the lone authority with no opposition.
If something is meant to be inaccurate and left to interpretation? Then it's presented as such. The book could sound opinionated or the author could be from a faction with an agenda, but above all, give it opposition. Provide players with another book that directly contradicts the first book opinion-wise, or give us NPCs that directly question the first book's authority.

My problem is that no one or nothing questioned the legitimacy of Immortal Blood.
My problem is that no one or nothing questioned the legitimacy of Trayvond the Redguard's claims of his culture.
My problem is that no one or nothing suggested a drop in werebear population.

Evidence we were given pointed EXACTLY in the other direction than what we've seen in Skyrim. Thus, those are all obvious retcons.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Movarth_Piquine the hunter who gets drained at the end of Immortal Blood can be encountered in skyrim as a vampire.

The author was a vampire who'd have every reason to lie, especially when you consider http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Movarth_Piquine is unalive in Skyrim. It appears that Immortal Blood may have been authored by a Volkihar vampire and not a cyrodillic.

The culture of Redguards in Hammerfell is probably very different then the culture of Redguards in other provinces. So what if Redguards have a bonus to destruction and alteration the very two schools Trayvond was specialized in back in Oblivion.(he sold mainly alteration and was a destruction trainer). Racial bonuses has more to do with natural ability then earlier training. And I really don't recall seeing Redguard mages in Skyrim aside from bandits, a couple Nord mages, plenty of elven mages and breton. The only non-bandit redguard mage I can recall was that bounty hunter but paralysis if your a bounty hunter just seems sensible assuming it wasn't a scroll because he never uses that spell in battle.


How do you know some of those bears aren't werebears? But seriously if you want a guilty party do you really need to be told it was the Silverhand or even the companions.

Im not saying its not a retconn... well i am in a sense.. im saying there no officially established fact about vampires so they cant be penalised for saying thats not quite how it is, i mean hellbefore we know the VLs are not volkihar but some other vampire that came through that damned mystic portal, which was in Castle Volkihar..
and my other point is why is everyone annoyed by retconns, if they can explain it well -in the dlc or future games- and dont just say the Volkihar got drunk one night and swore a pact to change there ways then fine, let them if it helps improve things.

I remember now.. Kinda proves that it's right though doesn't it? He didn't fully eat the person he just took a few bites and made him a vampire. Evidence!


(also, he's had more than 200 years to pick up a sword. )

No evidence it's the same guy. He's a different race every time and could have been someone who took to calling themselves that after they became a vampire.

Besides, Immortal Blood clearly states that Movarth Piquine doesn't use a weapon when fighting. The one we encounter in Skyrim is armed with a sword.

Also, nothing in Skyrim says he's Volkihar, as far as I can tell. They refer to him only as a vampire and I'm pretty sure the game code doesn't specify his type of vampire either.

Hi theer Coby!


Well said. While I certainly can sympathize with the hardcoe Lore-list, we must keep in mind this is a humongous fictional Universe that might get hard to manage and keep track of. However, if Beth is corrupting previous lore on purpose, they should make the seam conspicuous, acknowledge the contradiction and ride on it.

Ok but understand....

You as a reader, you will make that argument, because you want your Elder Scrolls universe to make sense, yes? Of course, that is the conclusion we all have to come to for the universe to make sense. "Well obviously the author was wrong!"
I'm not saying that's not the conclusion one should make if they want to make sense of the universe.

I'm saying, we shouldn't HAVE to have to make excuses for Bethesda's poor writing.

To me, us making excuses = poor writing on their part. More importantly, it's disappointing if, say, someone hears an announcement that the next game takes place in Skyrim and they think "AWW YEAH WEREBEARS!!!" because EVERY piece of in-game evidence suggests Skyrim is riddled with them, and then when Skyrim is released, the devs are like "Werebears? Nah man, Skyrim's all about wereponies now. Here man, get bitten by a pony so you can come frolick with us and eat oats and [censored]." Obviously that werebear fan is going to be disappointed, as he should be. I'm saying I'm sick of Bethesda disappointing and confusing it's fans.

YOU GUYS are focused on making sense of the TES universe. You're trying to stay immersed. I'm not. I'm approaching this differently. I'm jumping out of my immersion and walking straight up to Bethesda and saying "ok wtf is this crap" because I'd rather they improve on writing so I don't have to WORK to stay immersed.


As an example:


See? Here we are trying to make sense of the world. Me? I say "this makes no damn sense, his race switched" and I call it crappy writing.

YOU assume that if it is a lone authority with no opposition then it must be a fact, however this is nothing to support that. If I anonymously wrote a book about little green men living in the center of the Earth, you would assume that it is a fact if nobody opposed me. How can you oppose something that very few humans would ever come into contact with? It is illogical to assume any human could oppose this in the TES world, or even logical to assume a vampire would tell if it's accurate or not.

So your saying there's something wrong with loving bethesda's writing?

There you go again, strawman arguments are all you're really capable of.

I....would definitely question your taste in writing, personally, but everyone's entitled to their opinion.

But no, my point is more....I don't think you guys should praise them so much when....I can't help but feel like you guys think misinformation in the game is intended when it's actually not. You're giving Bethesda too much credit.
You wanna see intentional misinformation? Go play Morrowind, read the books there and talk to the main quest NPCs. The "intended misinformation" in Skyrim? I call BS; I think Bethesda just completely forgot what they wrote in the past two games, and now it's led to disappointment from some fans, because they're not getting the things they should've logically expected to see from Skyrim.

I could say the same thing about long knifes rants, that all he does is rant, he reminds me of earth linger, looking at all the faults and constantly complaining, if he's going to do that why dosen't he leave the rest of us out of it Hmmmm?? If he dosent like the elder scrolls lore why is he on this fourm? Why does he play skyrim?

This seems really childish. Vampires and the people that hunt them have always been a part of TES lore, at least since Daggerfall. And the idea that these vampires in Dawnguard don't follow it seems like a ludicrous came. Sure, they might not follow any of the current lore we have available, but who says that we have all of the lore? That's Bethesda's job. I don't remember people getting so made over The Knights of the Nine when there was no previous mention of them in any in-game lore. They just built off current lore, much like what Dawnguard is doing. It just like people want something to be one thing and one thing only when it could be that and so much more. It's not like Beth knew from the beginning of the TES series that all of the games were going to tie together with their respective main quests am lead to a culmmination of a prophecy in Skyrim. They had to right new lore for that. What's so bad about that? There was nothing in any of the previous games or lore that point to the events of Skyrim happening. Does that mean the events of Skyrim should be viewed as being subpar because there is no mention of anything like this in lore? Of course not. It just seems like some think the books written back in Arena should be the only sources for all of TES lore when that cannot be the case since Tamriel and Nirn is in an constant state of evolution and change. I understand that people are upset that Beth may be losing their creative integrity in regards to vampires as it seems like a rehash of other things in popular culture, but the fact is is that none of us know the whole story on what exactly Dawnguard is going to be like or how it is going to be explained in lore. So to restate some points I made earlier: we dont't have all of the lore, the lore is ever-changing and being created, an just because something is one thing does not mean it can also be another given the previous two statements. I honestly would've preferred Beth to stick to their own idea of vampires, which could still be the case,, but I'm also excited to what new things are brought to the table.

Do you know what I even meant by 'strawman?' No, probably not, but you've been doing it all thread, and in that quoted post, that was a perfect exemplification of it. It's a misrepresentation of someone else's argument. You misconstrue what they're saying to something they're not implying at all, and then attack that misconstrued point. That doesn't make your argument look good, it just makes you look childish and unintelligent.

The problem is that previous titles and previous lore led us to believe we'd be getting Volkihar vampires.
Instead we're getting cliché vampires ripped directly from Underworld.

On one hand it's sad to see original lore taking a backseat in the name of cliché ideas from OTHER forms of media, and on the other hand it's frustrating to logically expect one thing and then get something completely different.

Also Knights of the Nine WAS crap. I don't think anyone's a huge fan of it.
Sometimes new ideas are executed poorly, AKA Knights of the Nine, sometimes they're ok, AKA Jyggalag. I have low expectations for these coming vampires seeing as how they were ripped from other, more cliché forms of media, so I have little reason to believe they'll be just oozing with originality and new ideas.

Im not trying to make excuses for there "poor" writing, i personally at points do find it rather lacking in some areas. Im just saying that when there is a certain level of ambiguity in some of there lore, we can't really start shouting and complaining when they go in a direction that makes it possible for better gameplay or improved lore..

for example:
yes fans of the Werebear might be dissapointed when they weren't in Skyrim, but any sources we had stating they were a problem would of been before the two hundred year gap before Skyrim started. So although they may not of put it in there due to difficulties putting them in the game itself, it shouldn't incur the death penalty if they came up with a piece of lore saying that in the large time period something could of happened .. for example the the Vigil of Stendarr who have been on a mission to eliminate such things since the oblivion crisis may of dealt with the majority of the problem.
And yes what im saying may not be put across very well, and yes sometimes things not being there is dissapointing, but they should have some leverage as to what they can do with there lore.. Dragons were meant to be extinct before the Skyrim game started, but they made some lore to explain it.

I don't think you understand the meaning of 'Strawman Arguements'.

Longknife and Vukodlak(WoD reference?) seem to have decent points and counter points, I hope that they don't label these guys as Volikhar vamps but rather something closer to the original strain from the Daedric Curse.

What are the connection to Bats in Elder Scrolls Lore? Are there even Bats?

I don't think he doesn't like the lore. But all fans deserve to be able to voice themselves about Bethesda's decisions. We just want the series that we have been with for however many years to go in the right direction.

Carefull. You're both nearly insulting eachother. Anyway... feel free to write about what bethesda SHOULD do rather than why someone else is wrong.