Well, what about a fusion system?
Why isn't there a fast network of instant communication?
Two seashells, put a wire between them and enchant them with random magic #54 and voila! Telephone!
Yet, no cigar. :/

I just don't find it feasible that technology hasn't really advanced much since Morrowind.
I mean it's been centuries right? Despite magic being a solution for a vast area of things, shouldn't technology still advance?
Cause while mage's can be the solution to a lot of things not everyone learns how to use any magic schools.
Technological advancement would help more people than magic advancement would.
Besides, all the great magic out there seems to be ancient magic, which means that magic has degrated, not advanced.

Sure it's a risk to advance the setting, but I think it's needed.
Fable advanced it too fast for my taste, but ES has had several games rotating around the same setting.
I think it's time to advance the technology somewhat.

Nirn is locked in milleniums of technological stutter because developpers are attached to their setting and want to make it last as long as they can against all logic.
The developpers also have problems of culture and are stuck in generic fantasy with all the non-sense we all know. Like in any stupid JRPG, there's an ancient advanced civilization that disappeared for unknown reasons. You put that in a parody it's funny, but in TES it's not a parody so it's just ridiculous. Teenager's ideas of what's fantasy.
Dwemers are just a touch of steam punk that they didn't dare developping.

Don't worry, Bethesda doesn't know why Dwemers disappeared either.

Even so, to utilize the destructive forces of Magic requires extensive study while being able to fire a weapon requires almost none. Even if every race has some inclination towards magic does not mean that every person can utilize said magic. I still fail to see how including a limited amount of technology would hurt the series or the setting in any way. If anyone has read the Wheel of time series you can understand how certain cultures might actually be against the use of magic.

I am glad there hasn't been some sort of industrial revolution on Tamriel and I hope that there never is. I really dislike what that sort of progress did to the Fable franchise. I like TES because of its medieval-like feel. If that changed, it would not be TES.


That is what staves are for.


The whole "cultures that hate magic" thing is done to absolute death with the Dragon Age series and the Nords already have a level of that in their society. It really does get old and we do not need any more of it in my humble opinion.

Everyone can use magic, exactly like everyone can learn to play a musical instrument.
Only a few are talented enough to be very good at it though, just like with music.

There is technology in TES, and lots of it.
Bookprinting, glassmaking, architecture, governance.. All these and more are on the level of our renaissance.
Furthermore, there is advanced magic that simulates what our advanced technology does.
There is instant communication via the dreemsleeve, there are Sunbirds and Mananauts to explore space.

People on Nirn are not against the use of magic, for the same reason that people on Earth are not against gravity.
Its a fundamental part of the universe. The sun is a hole in the sky through which magic pours unto the world.

not everyone in Nirn is magically inclined. The Redgards should have SURELY made some tach war advances by this point. they shun magic, love fighting more than most. Cannons at the least should exist for their naval habits.

This makes me think about how much I hate Fable now. If I ever see an Elder Scrolls game where you can shoot a troll with a shotgun I'll give up on the series completely. I play fantasy RPGs for the fantasy, not modern technology.

To be fair, the Dwemer's fate was largely their owm fault. More like a cautionary tale of what trying to play god with technology can DO.

Gunpowder was discovered by mistake and it took many hundreds of years of work to make a usable firearm. The alchemist who first discovered the powder could have just binned and thought nothing of it but the power of human mind is the 'I wonder how this works?' question. That is why we as humans are so successful because we as a species are inquisitve I see no reason why the 'Humans' in Nirn should not be just as inquisitve and produce ruamentry explosive based weapons.

I however can't see them producing guns because to get to where the gun is today the people carrying out the early research had the finiacial backing of emporors and kings who saw the weapon as more of shock tactic than as an effective killing device I can't see people wasting money on this when mages would be used the same way. So the weapons may come into existance but would not 'Evolve' as they did here on earth and would in my veiw be resticed to thown explosives.

I would hate it if TES turned into some kind of steampunk-ish world with guns. Swords and Sorcery is what it should always be.

Why do people still act like the Dwemer are an unsolved mystery?

Why the imeprials need a tank if the Dragonbon can smash all of them with a Fus Roh Dah?

well there where no windmills draw bridges or saw mills in morrowind or oblivion so clearly there is new technology being invented its just happening at a much slower pace then in our world.

Physics.

1: The world need not be built from atoms.
2: Explosions need not concentrate through narrow openings, but may cause the chamber to explode and any object inside to be burnt, primarily, and slung out secondarily.
3: Metal does not need to lead electicity in a useful manner, and metal may be impossible to shape for wires, and it may be impossible to make anything that resembles electronics without magic.

4: Robots may be exceptionally hard to create, and not worth their ooomph because they need constant recharging or powerful magics, making them useful as defenders as long as they can recharge and only need to be in effective use for moments at a time.
For instance, the dwemer may have robots because they're steam-powered by the heat from the lava.

Which is exactly why an alternative to Magic is needed.


Again, agreed but as other limited minds have point out there are staves but that does not mean that a secondary method of doing something should not be used as well. It is often not until there is a competing product that something reaches its full potential. In this case such a technology would be extremely limited but you cannot honestly tell me that the destructive forces of a weapon anyone can wield would not be enticing to many instead of having to rely upon a mage that you trust.


You can live your life without using Magic, you cannot live your live without gravity without living off-world; there is a distinct difference. The people are influenced by the world around them. At some point I'm certain that a group was wronged with magic and therefore shuns its use. They cannot make outsiders do this so they will enclose themselves in an area and do everything in their power to limit their interaction with it. It happens even today with organic farms and communes. Just becaues they have the ability to purchase products does not mean they want to do so.

Gunpowder ingredients - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate (saltpetre).

• Check. Any of the steam vent areas.
  
• Check. Easily available.
  
• Check. Available as manure and/or urine can be used. Takes "many months" to a year for the bed to ferment.

#3 would seem to be the sticking point. As stated before, might have been "discovered" but then discarded as not useful in any known recipes (re. Post-it notes, 12 years between invention and marketing and that's in the Information Age). Who wants to root around in a year old manure pile hoping for something useful? And that's after figuring out the "aromatic" heap produced something of alchemical value.

Then putting all three ingredients together? What? Two alchemists working too close together and oop's, (spill). "You got sulfur in my saltpeter." "You got saltpeter in my sulfur."

All of this assumes that the same alchemic rules apply or more specifically that the interaction between substances follow our rules. Heck, it likely won't even be called gunpowder but something else entirely like Mage's Bane. Also, just because something is improbable does not mean that is is impossible.

Who the [censored] cares which game it is..CoD, MW, FO...as long as it doesn't show up in TES.

Let me rephrase then...

CoD, MW, FO thataway ------------------------>

I didn't read the entire thread, so forgive me if this has already been said. If you're interested in playing a game with both magic and technology in it, I suggest playing Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It has trains, the steam engine, guns, electric lights etc all existing in a world populated by standard fantasy elements Elves, magic, knights, dwarves etc. It's a really awesome game, save for those damn train operators. They always made me ride in the back of the train! Besides what games can you play now a days where you can pay in a brothel to spend the night with a sheep

hehe. I already have. I was waiting to see if anyone would mention it. I think you`re the first.

That game does indeed make a world where technology continued to develope into the Victorian age with magic as well. you actually have a big choice of doing things magically or with technology.

This is a fallacy, it took from 1500's to the 1890's for guns to be mass produced from smooth bore to rifling. The average person would not be able to hit a horse 25' away until spiral barrel and bullets was used in mass during the American Civil War. Guns were nothing more than high powered spears until rifling got underway.

You are circling the issue. i`m not talking about the process of smooth bore to rifling at all. I was not even talking about how well a person could hit anything on his own with a gun. I know for a fact that weapons mostly scared people in the old days rather than hit anything. I`m talking about when guns came into use to be used as an effective part of armies.

This is why men were put togther in a LARGE GROUP and trained to FIRE TOGETHER. This increased the chance of hitting the enemy. It wasn`t great causing more fear and smoke than death, but it did enough to be recognised as a potentially potent part of war.

This was successful enough that innovations in weapons were further refined (rifling), but gunnes were in use way before and were produced in enough numbers to be used in whole armies.

And we `re talking way before your American civil war. You need to research much further back, like Europe and China and Japan for example.

Try again.

Europe, China, Japan including almost all other nations had small units made up of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle dating well before the 1860's. When I say in mass I mean armies and that was not really used until the A-C-W and this was technically a hybrid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifles_in_the_American_Civil_War. The guns we know today did not start to become normal until around http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_weapon.

My point is guns were used more for the fear factor from a loud boom than actually getting hit in most of its history and it took 300 years for guns to become a truly fearsome and lethal weapon.

And this proves...

What?

Just that statment. Guns were difficult to use for 300 years. Much more difficult than bows. Guns took off when they became highly accurate, leathal, and most importantly mass produced and cheap. And yes, the modern breech load rifle is very very easy to use, a child can pick it up very quickly. Not the case in earlier versions.