Yes. Without him elves would be small fairy like creatures that were mischievous and lived in the woods. He created the idea of there being high elves that were tall, wise and noble beings.

I always like the old world sprite elves over high elves

I haven't got that one, but I've heard it's great. It was only recently reissued.

You can probably tell what my favourite musical contributions of his are by my avatar.

It is actually a really good album, I just don't really "get" poetry. Some classic songs on there, though.

I hadn't realised Moorcock was also involved with B?C, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised!

Meh, they are not really comparable. Books can imply way more than games can. Especially games that have all the interesting bits under the hood.

Basically they are nearly opposites. TES basically exists as a reversed trope of Tolkien based works. Tolkien's world exists as an interpretation of older mythologies of which he borrowed HEAVILY from.

He also didn't invent the beautiful elves either...those are just Ljósálfar given new life.

This is like comparing a 15 year old against an old man in terms of experiences. Tolkien devoted his life to his creation. Spent more years on it than TES has so far existed. It also was only writing. Everything in the movies and games is owed to Tolkien's descriptions and decades of fan interpretation and other artists borrowing from and evolving the concepts described in his works.

Tolkien was brilliant but he also is overrated by pretty much everyone. Most of whom have no idea of the real details of his work. He has existed at this point for so long he is basically more of a Mythic figure to people than a person.

On the flip side most people have no idea about what resides under the hood in TES games. I personally think TES has more interesting concepts in it and Tolkien's work has an inescapable authorial bias to it for me. A product of his time for sure, but one that was also beyond his time as well.

So TL;DR? Apples and Oranges.

I've never gotten why people call things overrated, form your own opinion. Unless you think it is better than you think it actually is it shouldn't be overrated.

Borrowing from mythology, religion, etc. and making it all fit snugly in a well thought out world is not something to scoff at. Everything is borrowed from somewhere but Tolkein didn't simply copy and paste, he breathed new life into old tales and combined ideas from various walks of life then mixed in his own flavor to create a legacy.
TES is a great series but their lore is way more disorganized then Middle earths lore and the more they try to expand on lore, the more loopholes and contradictions occur trying to make sense of the mess. If they had proper writers from early on to lay the foundation then it would be something to rival Tolkein but TES lore pales in comparison...the games are great, the lore not so much

Tolkien by far. Granted I love the TES universe and the lore is rich and compelling, Tolkien stands alone in the matter against all others. Pretty much everything that is medievil fantasy based is derived from the standards he created.

*dies laughing*

Did I scoff at it? No I didn't. I simply made accurate observations. Saying it all fits snuggly is a matter of opinion as well. Much easier to do that in books when technology does not limit you and there is only one author and thus one mind to create the material.

Now I'll ask you, what do you actually know of TES lore? What contradictions and loopholes are you referring to? Because I bet there is an explanation for them. TES keeps things subjective so much appears contradictory for a reason. We also do not have access to their lore libraries either. It isn't fair to compare a setting that has all it's details revealed to one that has much of it hidden.

I found the retcon of Cyrodiils landscape from jungle-ish to generic forest to be a cheap cop-out. Basically: "a wizard did it" -type answer to it.

TES lore has its pros and cons in the same area in my opinion: its incompleteness.

As someone who frequents the RPs of the Fan Fic section, the incompleteness of culures, hostories, etc. means there is lots of creative room for us to write our own fluff for RPs involving generally undetailed areas like High Rock or Hammerfell. But at the same time its also frustrating at times when there is virtually no info on a place you plan on writing about. Metaphysics is fine and dandy but I never felt connected to the races and cultures of TES until fellow RPers take it upon themselves to flesh things out.

The idea that Tolkien's universe is clear and structured and complete couldn't be more wrong. He published Hobbit, and years later Lord of the Rings, and those two works contradicted each other in tone and in information. The rest of his works - Silmarillion, Forgotten Tales, History of Middle Earth, etc. - is all boxes and boxes of disorganized notes, half finished narratives, dozens of different drafts, and letters to friends. His universe is just as confused and contradictory as TES once you go outside the main works, and that's one of my favorite parts. There are still journals being published with new rules on Quenya/Sindarin grammar and vocabulary. Half the elves used to be gnomes, for Iluvatar's sake.

If it's anything like Sonic Attack I'll probably love it!

His contributions to BOC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCxL3-Fl7bM (the most obvious)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIE0wTFg364

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYg3vvVwj4Y

All of which are the best tracks from their individual albums if you ask me.

I really rather like them! I still need to check out B?C more, I mainly just know them for Don't Fear The Reaper. Hawkwind's poetry readings tend to be just that, though some of their more regular work was also heavily influenced by Moorcock, in particular the Chronicle Of The Black Sword album, which was pretty much a concept album based on Elfric, from what I understand (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzFDuAqpHCU being the opener).


Edit: seems someone's uploaded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kswqq98961s in its entirety.

Tolkien.

Elder Scrolls was good but then Skyrim came and kicked the lore out the window and onto a busy motorway. I hate it when games make idiotic stories and lore without any thought into it.

That is true, but in a sense, Tolkien cheated. Almost everything he did, save the racial philogenetics and the geneologies are ripped directly from already existing European Myths and Legends. He did elaborate on his original Anglo-Saxon and Celtic mythos, but at the bottom of his entire world was the myths of Anglo-Saxons and Celts.

ES myths are somewhat better in that reguard. Akatosh is not redressed Odinn, Arkay is not Hades or Hela, Julianos is not Athena or Vulcan. It's much more original than that (though TBH I do detect a few hints of Gnosticism and Platonism in the background, but more as a philosophical backdrop than as an origin of the mythos). I defy you to find any mythological diety that is remotely like Vivec. For that matter, find me a mythological anolog for Trinamec/Malacath. They don't exist elsewhere. It's not merely window-dressing something that already existed, it's an invention of the people building that world. I have to give credit for the more original mythos, because I think creating something unique from nothing requires more skill than re-using an existing mythos and building a world around that.

Few things about fictional worlds are more annoying than the inability of their fans to acknowledge that there may simply be changes, retcons, or even errors.
And it is one of the more futile tasks to try to explain those incontinuities away.
They've changed it. Nothing more simple than that.

That said, I wouldn't single out Tolkien's world for consistency, either. As has been pointed out, apart from LotR and the Hobbit, Tolkien's world is one extraordinarily huge pile of several decades' worth of notes, constantly changing, shifting, reforming ideas and stories.

And @topic: Tolkien.
TES lore is nice, too. It is most interesting, however, when it deliberately twists the generic tolkienesque fantasy. It wouldn't be there if not for Tolkien, even then.

True but very little of the retcons happened after being published,Unlike TES....where they have hacked and cut and changed lore whenever and wherever they want and most of it doesn't make much sense at times.....

this pretty much sums up how I feel about TES lore. While Tolkiens lore is far from perfect it feels more fleshed out and additions to previous stories seem to tie in better then they do in TES.

TES lore should be better as it not only continues (Tolkein is long dead) but it can be told through narration, gameplay, dialogue and books in game as well as real world books. With all those means to tell a story then it should be the richest and most well thought out lore around instead of the mess full of half brained things that MK throws out on a whim like the Lorkhan thing (god I hate that numbered list and the missing name).

Well... That's a false comparison. Tolkien only has one god in his lore, and how the world was formed is very creative. The one god created a race of immortals to sing to him, and their tunes created everything besides men and elves. Something like that, anyway. All of the stuff he "cheated" is actually what TES, along with most fantasy, took from him. Elves, goblins, orcs, dragons, etc.

That's funny as I always Alduin the world eater was a copy of the Nidhogg that eats at the world tree. I'm sure all the other deities can be compared to real world myths and religions

The Nine Divines are a Anglicised version of the Greek/Roman pantheon IMO. It makes sense given their strong Roman based culture.

They are more like any generic polytheist pantheon. The Nine Divines do not have, for example, a god for war or a god for agriculture. In fact, I do not see any resemblance between 9-divines and Roman pantheon except that both are polytheist.

Not really, considering it's the Nine but no other minor deities for TES, whereas the Romans pretty much had a god for every thing and action. Being polytheistic does not mean you are copying a Roman system.

Isn't Talos generally considered a "war-god"? Or at least a patron of sorts for soldiers?

Actually, Talos covers War, and Zenithar agriculture.

@Blade- I'd argue the Daedra are, in an external PoV, lesser Gods, the Aedra being superior.