I am reading the history of Tamriel these days. it's huge and brilliant!
but I think there should be a change during these days about the way of living. the house are the same, clothes are the same, foods are the same, weapons are the same, ...
in real form of life we see changes in these kind of things. just look at the history. the way of living has been changing among the people of the world.
for example in our country; Iran. we have got that kind of changes. we have got two kind of era: Post Islamic and past Islamic. these two have various sub-era's and these sub-era's have their own kind of culture (clothes,foods, buildings and...).
I know I know, It's a game, but it would be so nice to see these kind of changes. we don't see that, 200 years after Oblivion crisis and no change in anything! even weapons are the same!
what do you think? for of against?

I guess too many changes will make fans mad...just my opinion

Well, the Nords are trying hard to preserve their ancient way of life. So that would explain the old-fashioned-ness of the more rebellious Nords. As for the Imerials, I have nothing to say...

I think what you're looking for is some sort of technological evolution within the series. I believe that if you change what the game offers (ie: epic fantasy) into something that has things like guns and explosives, it might lure a few new players... but then you might loose a lot more.

Bethesda is talking about / planning on rebooting the series. Who's to say what they'll do with it then? Personally, I hope that they stick with their proven template and don't deviate from it.

Changes in weapons and armor could happen, but nothing really besides the visual and that has changed. You have to keep in mind that the materials used to produce weapons and armor remain mostly the same so it's only logical that everything else remains the same.
Clothing should logically change a bit, but again that's purely visual and even though I don't remember how clothing looked in Oblivion I'm sure there have been some changes.

In feal life, things didn't change that quickly. Everyone wore the same kind of clothes, ate the same food, created the same kind of art, for entire epochs. 1,000 years or more, at a time.

Nothing changed, because people didn't travel, because it was too dangerous. The Western Roman Empire kept up the roads and trade, by making it easy and safe to travel, so you could make money selling goods in other markets. When Rome collapsed the Western Empire fell into ruin and darkness for 1,000 years, until the Rennaissance.

I accept that Tamriel, like Middle Earth, is a world where things evolve and develop completely differently from our own. It's a part of the world that you have to buy in to and accept as different, even if it is unrealistic. Same as in the Star Wars universe where in thousands of years, space travel or technology does not develop at all...it's fantasy, it is make-believe.

No really. I don't like the modern era with lasers and guns. but we have the changes along the history for 200 years. for example look at the Romans. along 200 years of their empire we see how many kind of weapons and war machines have been invented!

it depends on how do you think about "Change". I don't mean the huge changes like industrialism. I mean changes like inventing spears and arrow towers in Roman and Greek history. that's old too, but these invents happened in near 100 years.

Yeah, but by the 5th Century they were still fighting in the Manipular formation... getting their tails kicked by the Visigoths.

Besides, trying to compare real life history with a game set inside an epic fantasy is a fruitless pursuit. I'd like to compare the ES series to that which is set inside Tolkien's Middle-Earth. Even they didn't advance that much within 4000 years.

And then the Dark Age happened to Europe and all progress in science and culture got lost or forbidden. It is not a good comparison but if you think of the Dwemer and their vanish including the lost of technology you can say Nirn fell into the Dark Age

as an example: just look at the Emperor clothes. both emperors in Oblivion and Skyrim wear the same clothes. which two kings (emperors) in history wore same clothes?

maybe!
but you know, we are talking. we share our thoughts. you mention something that I didn't think of and maybe I can do that. I like that and I like to thank you guys!

These large Battles continued until the 17th Century where all armys sorted infront of the enemy and then crushed onto the other. Also i didn't have seen any scientist. And the most technologie got improved through Wars. The best changes did the Roman Empire of course, organized Armys, Formations, Tactic and Technologie, thats what made them a great Force. And since in Nirn it is more or less peaceful the is no need for such improvements. I don't think there were any "World Wars" in Nirn.



Maybe it has some kind of Tradition?

agree, but you know, human always wants more! and that's how he/she improve him/herself.

Considering that they produce games that are 200 years apart from each other that would make a 1000 year span for the 5 games (counting arena till Skyrim). Even the Dark age of Europe didnt last that long.

Besides that its seems that Tech in the Elder scrolls seems to be going back and forth and than mixed up, eg low tech on everything but 16th century saw mills are present in several villages?

It doesn't change much because they have a theme they stick to rather than trying to make a realistic technological evolution, something I am very grateful for.

If they would change the Technology from every new TES we would soon arrive in the Fallout era.

Just gonna point this out right away: Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion are all set during the reign of Uriel Septim the 7th or more specificly between 3E399 and 3E434.

I dont know what kind of history they teach kids these days.

The advancements made in the past 100 years or so are unprecedented in human history.
Even still, all over the world you can find people who live exactly like their ancestors did, going back 40.000 years.

Status quo is the natural mode, advancement or change is rare.

Tamriel is 6500 years old and also a mythical universe.
The factors that stimulate progress and change are largely absent.

I'd also like to note that the world of the Elder Scrolls games literally runs on the power of myth. One of the main conceits of pretty much every mythical tradition is that there was a Golden Age in the past, and that the world and its technology, far from advancing to something better, has regressed. To have technological advancement and improvement show up would be to betray that point (more so than it already has been, some might say, but I'm a bit more generous about that).

That's just what the artists of the Renaissance wanted you to think. The fall of the western Roman empire broke civilization and took a lot of technology with it, but it didn't stop technological progress. Technology changed a lot during the middle ages and so did styles. There are lots of obvious examples in weapons, architecture, the invention of clocks, etc.

The Elder Scrolls games show weird combinations of technology that do seem to change from one game to the next. It's ok for standard technology to show little change in 200 years, but you'd expect magic use not to regress (how come nobody can fly or teleport anymore?), especially since the mages actively research magic techniques.

You've got a point there.
This, of course, has been debated here before. Some argue that because of widepread use of magic the need for technology is non existent.

Let's look at this more closely, shall we:

- Nords generaly frown upon Magic.
Due to religious beliefs, a radical Nord sect might abhor magic altogether and thus be forced to develop some form of defensive tech - explosives, traps, etc.

- There are rudimentary forms of technology already in place: mills, carriages, forges.
This suggests that magic cannot be used to perform all activities eficiently. Magic seems more suited to meet definite personal needs. Thus, as communities grow and their needs increase in bulk and in scope, we could see a shift towards heavy machinery/technology.

- There's already a precedemt: Dwemer ruins.

I disagree.
Need stimulates ingenuity.

Both external - just think of the return of Dragons - and internal - population growth, competition for resources - factors put pressure on needst. Wartime is prone to technology advancement.

Skyrim faces civil war.

On Tamriel advances in wartime consist of things like giant stompy timetravelling robots or the summoning of an avatar of a god.

There is no pressure to develop technologically in a universe that runs on myth.