Todd even says in a interview be was really influenced by lotr during oblivion. This is just a carry over, I mean what nerd hasn't been influenced by the books and or movies. I have

Yes and no. They weren't all that popular leading right up tithe movies. But gained popularity during the 60's and 70's. Esspecially the hobbit. Even led zepplin references the books in a couple of songs

Do you mean copied from the movie or the online game? I ask this because I dont think the books are descriptive enough to say these orcs look like the ones from the book.

Edit: actually I dont think the movie referred to them as the mines of moria. It was just moria. So you are comparing to lotro then?

Most, if not all, western RPGs have inspiration from LotR in varying degree so I'm not suprised.

Just inspired? Probable.

LOTR essentially created the genre, so I wouldn't take issue with copying.

I wouldn't say, copying, but inspired.

While some people hate that Bethesda took some inspiration on the LOTR triology, i love the idea. really. I find it really cool to find similiarities.

Also did you notice that Whiterun looks alot with Rohan ? and the King of Rohan looks a little bit like Jarl Balgruuf ?

Lol really ?

That's really cool.

Knights of the Round table , the concept of paladins slaying monsters in a fantasy world to retrieve artifacts or glory or whatever , exist since the Middle Age , Chretien de Troyes and other medieval writers came up with fantasy books several centuries before Tolkien .

This said , i agree it's true the Lord of the Rings had quite an influence on the current generation and modern fantasy games in general , although personally, i never read a single LOTR book and saw the movies only recently , in my time it was Willow and Conan the Barbarian

But IMHO , it's the Celtic culture that gave birth to the genre , Tolkien 's contribution is huge but he had to find the influence/inspiration somewhere

Definately not copying but of course the whole Elder Scrolls trilogy is inspired by LOTR, big difference between being inspired by something and copying

It's not copying.
Lots of games and series were inspired by LOTR... Not only TES

The first book was released in 1954!

Today, it's really hard to be original.... You know that, don't you?

That's why games in the 80's and the 90's were considered original...
Now they're considered "copies" by many...

Nearly all fantasy rpg borrows from LOTR. They also follow LOTR by borrowing their influences from real ancient history and world mythology.

Tolkien when he wrote LOTR and Hobbit invented the orc.

LOTR was based on Germanic / Norse mythology crossed with a story influenced from Christian / Biblical thoughts. Tolkien invented the orcs to be bad creatures who I think were inspired by fallen angels (daemons) or something along those lines. The idea behind it was to illustrate the impact sin or something similar.


Nearly every fantasy rpg game since has followed suit of using Northern European mythology (ogres, goblins, elves, dwarves, dragons etc) including the use of Tolkien's orcs. Now orcs are often seen more as a separate race to humans and can be good as well as bad.

In Germanic / Norse mythology real Elves are like an inequivalent to the Angels mentioned in Hebrew mythology as they live in the spirit realm between Heaven and Earth and the good elves bring about good for mankind and the dark elves bring about misfortune. Again they have become like a separate race to humans in most fantasy written realms.

Now it has become the blueprint to have humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, goblins & ogres as races or creatures in fantasy made universes.

TES have made their own route to other rpg by bringing into play other world influences in to their races. Elves who they have re-invented as the "mer" have more of an Asiatic influence compared to the normal European influences of other fantasy rpg. i.e. Dunmer are like Turkic / Mongolian people of central Asia (live in Yurts - which is the name of the tent use by Turkic people, have shamans, light armed and good with bow, armor greatly made from animals, nomadic living in wastelands, have big cities, etc etc...), Altmer are like Chinese (Capital city named "Forbidden City" which is also name for ancient Beijing, They consider other races as barbaric and uncivilised the same like ancient Chinese did to other races, Orcish armor from Morrowind which was based on High Elven design and looked like Samurai...), Khajiit like Indians (tigers etc found in India, names like ra'ja and end in iit. curved swords, skillfull light armored swordsmen, travel in caravans etc)....

All stories draw inspiration from the experiences of the directors, developers, or authors. Makes sense to me. It's not as though they ripped off ideas and plot lines directly.

Pretty much all modern fantasy borrows from Lord of the Rings, Tolkien invented it.

what fantasy game doesent copy LOTR in some way. i cant think of any

Didn't Tolkien invent orcs?

Walter Moers and his Zamonia novels!

Also, the Abarat series by Clive Barker

Those are novels, of course, not games. But I think it's only a question of time until someone will make a one.

Absolutely, it looks cool too!

Yes, but his version is actually a lot more like the Falmer (only not blind) - they used to be elves, caught, tortured and twisted beyond recognition by Morgoth, who was actually the boss of TLOTR's Big Bad Sauron. The garden variety Orc (you know, green-skinned with tusks and a severe underbite) that appears in many fantasy worlds actually came from D&D, I think. But I'm not sure about that.

Nah, if anything, LOTR copies the original saga of Beowulf.

Skyrim definitely has a very LOTR-like feel to it. Just compare the visuals of TES:S to the LOTR movies. Very, very similar. I love it.

Don't know if it's been mentioned above, but if it has - I apologize.

Most, if not all, of modern Fantasy genre's take from Lord of the Rings. It is the precursor to modern fantasy, in that it broke the 'norm' of the time. WoW, D&D even TES all take little bits.

Those were Goblins in the Mines of Moria. And an ES Dwemer is nothing like a LOTR Dwarf. Tolkien didnt invent Orcs either.

Lord of the Rings is based on the same source material that Wagner's "Ring Cycle" was, and both of those relied on source material from the 13th century tale "The saga of the Volsungs". Skyrim is more or less the culmination of all three. Skyrim does however go back to the roots of the original source material ( Volsunga Saga) an Icelandic tale of the Norse hero Sigurd who slays Dragons.

Everything is a reference to Tolkien. The man invented fantasy as we know it (the general archetypes of the Elves, Dwarves, landscape, questing, ect. ). RPGs have been standing on his shoulders since D&D.

There is no problem when something is similar to Tolkien.