Let's put an end to this "lore breaking changes" business.

Cathexis

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Wabbajack_(Skyrim)

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Sheogorath

"The best-known of these is the staff known as Wabbajack. It can transform a creature into something else, though it is impossible to predict the result. This artifact can be found in the games Daggerfall, Oblivion, Skyrim and Online, after doing tasks for Sheogorath, as part of certain quests."

Race changes are possible and respect lore.

ARGUMENT FINISHED

Shunravi

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dragon_Break

MY ARGUMENT ADDS TO YOURS!!!

Cathexis

Shunravi wrote: »

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Dragon_Break

MY ARGUMENT ADDS TO YOURS!!!

IT DOES! ARGUMENT MOAR FINISHED!

Jules

Much yes.

Lava_Croft

The only ones who have any monopoly on TES lore are the developers. The rest just feels entitled because they played Morrowind.

Cody

#ARGONIANMASTERRACE

Folkb

Pshh they broke lore when they decided a Kajiit could be crowned emperor of cyrodiil and lead the ebonheart pact.

(this works for any other odd combo of races/alliances too)

mtwiggz

Folkb wrote: »

Pshh they broke lore when they decided a Kajiit could be crowned emperor of cyrodiil and lead the ebonheart pact.

(this works for any other odd combo of races/alliances too)

There are spais and defectors in every alliance! Lore embracing more than lore breaking!

golfer.dub17_ESO

Lava_Croft wrote: »

The only ones who have any monopoly on TES lore are the developers. The rest just feels entitled because they played Morrowind.

I see this argument all the time and I just don't agree.

When you make any kind of franchise, you create expectations in the minds of your fans. When you start retconning everything and going against the fans' wishes, you're pretty much spitting in their face. What's that popular saying...something like "when an artist releases a piece of art it no longer belongs to him, it belongs to the world".

That said I don't feel that race changes violate lore simply because I don't believe they have anything to do with the lore at all. My views on this are probably going to be hard to understand but I'll try my best to explain.

As far as the fictional world around you is concerned, even after race changing you were always that race. NPC's aren't going to ask why you suddenly grew a tail, there's no quests involving a race change or NPC's that offer race changing services, there's no magical explanation for how race changes work, so on. The world treats you as if you were always that race and nothing has changed. Zenimax offers you a service outside of the game to change your race, and then you could simply pretend you were never your initial race to begin with, and the in-game world around you wouldn't disagree with that, it would simply reflect it. The only problem here isn't a lore one, it's personal immersion and being able to fool yourself into accepting you never changed race at all.

It's only when the developers start explicitly tying race changes to lore (i.e. inventing an in-lore explanation as to why race changes are possible or how they work, acknowledging that an actual change took place) that it becomes a lore issue. Because now they've actually changed the canon, and caused canon debates.

Non-canon race changes sold as a service in the non-canonical crown store don't cause lore issues because they don't touch canon at all.

Making up some contrived dragonbreak theory to half-heartedly explain the changes from a lore-perspective is just going to seem entirely forced and cause unnecessary debate. It's not a lore issue so it shouldn't be treated as one.

Pshh they broke lore when they decided a Kajiit could be crowned emperor of cyrodiil and lead the ebonheart pact.

(this works for any other odd combo of races/alliances too)

It doesn't violate lore because nothing that happens in Cyrodiil PvP is canon. Again the important thing is distinguishing canon and non-canon.

It's not like the thousands of battles taking place between AD's gate and EP's Nearby Keep on Thornblade are actually part of the universe. It's not like there were actually a hundred different emperors in that time period.

Cathexis

@golfer.dub17_ESO I entirely agree with your perspective, however there is an increasing use of lore as a means to validate any and every argument about how the game should be or should be played and it seems like people completely miss the part where the series is built on diversity of choice and play style.

One could argue however that there could have hypothetically been hundreds of emporers since the game is supposed to be set in an undocumented period where an evil god is manipulating the fabric of time and space between worlds..just saying

Shunravi

@golfer.dub17_ESO, well it's a yes and no about the multiple emporers. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Interregnum they chose this period of time because 'During the entirety of Interregnum, petty warlords had attempted to seize control of Cyrodiil's capital and to reestablish the Empire. None of them lasted for long,' referenced in a book from Redguard. Many false emporers with short reigns.That's pretty lore centered. But you are right, there are things that shouldn't be worked into the lore and should just exist mechanics wise.

Jitterbug

Cody wrote: »

#ARGONIANMASTERRACE

#NERFSWIMSPEED

Trollwut

Lava_Croft wrote: »

The rest just feels entitled because they played Morrowind.

Because there is no reason to be ashamed for it.

Rosveen

TES games have: a lady who can completely reshape your face, two dudes trapped in one body switching at will, and a lady permanently transforming into a crocodile. What did you say about lore again?

Shunravi

Lore also has an entire race of shapeshifters and some lore states that some members of this race were used to create another race by a Devine being. Lore also has multiple retcon tools (CHIM, Dragon breaks) as well as some pretty far out things including (if you include the writings of Kirkbride to be cannon) queen Ayren being a space ship (synthetic exoform) from the future called KINMUNE.

zachary4828

Is it really a lore issue or a service issue? It seems like a simple task, but even simple things take time and money to implement. I guarantee that with most of the games income coming from the crown store and the number of people interested in race change that this is on Zenimax's plate for implementation.

Rudyard

This should be in a different forum than PVP Combat and Skills.