See, in skyrim the lore states that houses are partialy underground (against the cold) In Tes V the Houses are made to look like normal houses and are tall with basemants being the only parts underground, Because American families wouldn't like their children exposed to such an alien culture with Soiled insulation ideas. More notably Oblivion Went from Jungle to a more european land (with lions) Roman influences were diminished. In Skyrim the Imperials Became Romans.


My two opposing theories go like this.

A: because there is a european area of the game, Bethesda will feel comfortable with Spicing up the other buildings in the world.

or

b: Because Only high rock is Lorewise very european (Cyrodil is also fairly european) Bethesda will ensure that every country in the game has a generic town with generic buildings, or Perhaps every town will be European with a small variation in design so that the Defenders of bethesda have something to defend.

I hope Tamriel is almost entirely like how it's described in the 1st PGE.

well form what I read in lore....

Morrowind, summerset isles, valenwood, elyswer, blackmarsh are pretty much the weirdest places u can think of

Where did you get this crazy talk from ?

There are going to be a lot bigger problems with Lore (and previous TES games) than things like underground houses.

A couple of examples:

Area-of-effect magic in TES games damages Friend and Foe alike. In close combat, it's possible to accidentally hit (even kill) your allies.

The Levitation Act of 3E 421 banned the use of levitation magic. Prior to that time, mages were able to cast levitation spells, and fly anywhere at will. It was even possible to enchant permanent levitation onto a garment, and stay in the air indefinitely.

I'd say this is more gameplay affects than lore. If there's no levitation because it would un balance PvP, then fine. If there's no walking trees in Valenwood because Zenimax couldn't be bothered to add them in, or were worried they'd be "too weird" for "modern" or "casual" players, then we have a problem.

Exactly that's not lore, just mechanics.

On the contrary, levitation is definitely a lore issue, because Bethesda introduced the "Levitation Act of 3E 421" to explain away the removal of that magical effect in Oblivion. That means that the in-game lore is that prior to 3E 421, people could fly.

I'll accept that the combat issues are a mechanics thing, but given that "friendly fire" has been one of the challenges in the TES games, it's an issue that somebody is going to have to "explain away" somehow, if cooperative combat is going to work.

Poor telvanni.
Well, friendly fire exists due to the innacuracy of the player. If you wait the time to hit, you will avoid friendly fire ... so the explanation would be "the people were more trained back in the 2nd era"

I hope the lore is accurate and teh game looks and feels like a TES game

the leveitation act was more of a joke, and friendly fire is a gameplay mechanic (i hope your joking about it being a lore issue) I actually think that it would be a great time to put the weirder parts of lore into the game, i might actually buy tes:o just to see argoania

Poor Telvanni indeed. I always wondered how they got into their houses after the Levitation Act was passed. Probably just disregarded it, being Telvanni...

friendly fire is a must

BUT it will mean that AOE spells have to be EXTREMELY powerful to off set the danger and difficulty in using them in a PVP battle OR a massive PVE engagement

think grenades and RPGs in BF3 they are a one hit one kill AOE but friendly fire is a very real danger and u can't just run around throwing them wily nily (I play hard core BF3 not normal)

ladders

Yes, I'm looking at this stuff with considerable amusemant. I'm curious to see what gets implemented, and what doesn't. Levitation is not unknown in MMOs, so it may be in, for all I know.

I've always regarded TES as being the only "realistic fantasy" ( ) RPG, with there being a possibility of incinerating your allies with that big fireball. I'd hate to see that go, as it would remove some of the risk/reward from the game.

Yes, maybe they piled lots of Argonians to make lizard-ladders.

Somehow I have a hard time visualizing Mistress Therana climbing a ladder to her quarters. That's probably just as well...

The Levitation act is pure BS. Skooma is outlawed and you still see that in game. There are hordes of mages out in the wilderness well beyond the grasp of the law who could use it. People would ignore the act and it wouldn't stop the influx of items that allowed you to levitate. That retcon was just pure BS.

That part of the lore doesn't exist as far as I am concerned because if it did it would mean the Lore is essentially broken. Of course it is a joke as they couldn't implement levitation into later games. Besides levitation literally happens in the Novels but yet it's gone in Skyrim? Pffttt...

These are game mechanics people. These have no bearing on the lore because no matter how you spin it it won't make sense. AoE spells probably won't affect your allies. We know this because you can apparently spin kick fireballs in your allies fire storm. Which sounds cool and all but is ridiculous.

Of course it was! That was really the point of my bringing it up. Now that they've stepped in that bucket of tar, they're going to have to either put levitation in the game, or deal with the wise-ass (looks furtively in mirror) who keeps asking why he can't fly.

I think you're probably right, but I hope not. I'd like to believe that they're trying for something a little bit more gritty, a little bit more risky. I actually like the fact that not everything goes right in a TES fight. I hope they can keep some of that.

lol

well in minecraft ladders were basically 7 sticks of wood arranged in a H shape

That 'levitation act' is a shaky bit of last-ditch lore in order to explain away a gameplay difference.
First of all, the Septim Empire became defunct right after the Oblivion crisis.
With the dissolution of the mage's guild, that should be the end of that act.

Secondly, no Telvanni, Psijic, Necromancer or dozens of other mage sub-groups would have even thought of obeying that act, if they ever even knew about it.

Yeah. I want levitation back in TES games.

Levitation act was supposedly passed in 3E 421. Morrowind takes place in 3E 427, so we can see that no one obeyed the act if it was intended to affect the whole empire.

Yeah, me too. (I'm happy to see people talking about it. )

well levitation can be easy to implement (I mean hell wow has it) it does not have to mean u can fly like super man XD

I wonder if Levitation will be in TES:O? I sure hope so. Since there will undoubtedly be Telvanni towers to visit, I suppose it's a possibility. And WoW has flying mounts, so the devs might be more willing to add flying into TESO "because WoW has it".