Wayshrines where did they come from?

LtCrunch

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I came in to this thread expecting it to be more along the lines of, "Magnets, how do they work?" I am highly disappointed.

And OP: they don't fit in the lore too well, but since this entire era is a big question mark in the history books, it doesn't really matter. Why are they there? Because this is an MMO, and people would never play an MMO without some form of fast-travel.

People used to

Holycannoli

Shunravi wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

They don't fit into the whole lore. There never used to be mundus stones, we chose our constellation at character creation and it was permanent.

well, a rose by any other name...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Bloodmoon:The_Skaal_Test_of_Loyalty
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Standing_Stones

They didn't exist in Daggerfall and Morrowind and I consider those two games the superior TES games.

Brandalf wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I came in to this thread expecting it to be more along the lines of, "Magnets, how do they work?" I am highly disappointed.

And OP: they don't fit in the lore too well, but since this entire era is a big question mark in the history books, it doesn't really matter. Why are they there? Because this is an MMO, and people would never play an MMO without some form of fast-travel.

People used to

My first trip from Felwithe to Erudin in classic Everquest was the most epic experience I've ever had in an MMO. It was 15 years ago and nothing has compared in all that time.

nerevarine1138

Holycannoli wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

They don't fit into the whole lore. There never used to be mundus stones, we chose our constellation at character creation and it was permanent.

well, a rose by any other name...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Bloodmoon:The_Skaal_Test_of_Loyalty
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Standing_Stones

They didn't exist in Daggerfall and Morrowind and I consider those two games the superior TES games.

Well, Morrowind had a number of different fast-travel options that weren't in the other games.

The point stands that there are massive differences between the single-player games because the lore is flexible enough to take it. The large gaps left in the history of Tamriel allow the developers to update game mechanics as games and gamers change.

Iago

Holycannoli wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

They don't fit into the whole lore. There never used to be mundus stones, we chose our constellation at character creation and it was permanent.

well, a rose by any other name...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Bloodmoon:The_Skaal_Test_of_Loyalty
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Standing_Stones

They didn't exist in Daggerfall and Morrowind and I consider those two games the superior TES games.

they did not exist in Vvardenfall Where tes 3 Took place. However if they are left over Ayleid Relics It stands to reason there would have never been any there to begin with. There were no Ayleid ruins there at all. although she abandoned to Dunmer strongholds did have a very similar transportation system.


and even if there had been a few scattered throughout the island its a long gap between eson the morrowind. any number of things could have been raised the way shrines from existence. they may have been dismantled on purpose or it could have been some kind of weird magical catastrophe involving them.

Gidorick

Panda244 wrote: »

Want a work-around? Walk everywhere. Problem solved.

One of my characters does this... he doesn't trust those infernal things.

Shunravi

Holycannoli wrote: »

Shunravi wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

They don't fit into the whole lore. There never used to be mundus stones, we chose our constellation at character creation and it was permanent.

well, a rose by any other name...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Bloodmoon:The_Skaal_Test_of_Loyalty
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Standing_Stones

They didn't exist in Daggerfall and Morrowind and I consider those two games the superior TES games.

I agree, which is why I linked the ones from bloodmoon.

Gidorick

Brandalf wrote: »

Panda244 wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

They don't fit into the whole lore. There never used to be mundus stones, we chose our constellation at character creation and it was permanent.

And Cyrodiil at this point and time is suppose to be a f**king jungle. Your point?

Unless of course if the whole Tiber Septim chim thing is retroactive.

The change by Tiber Septim was retroa... is retroact.... will be retroactive.

LMar

The book that a precious poster posted explains it. Basically they are just shrines to pray at for all other people except you the person without soul. They are supposed to reflect the position of the stars (that's something they didn't really have to add so that they could be more flexible). Shrines are found in other games as well. Like the shrines to the divines around Cyrodiil in TES IV Oblivion. And there were shrines in Morrowind as well.

Normal people would just use them to pray or whatever but you as a person "unmoored" from your soul/Mundus (can't remember exact wording of book) can actually use them for travel.

Remember that you should sometimes look at it from a different perspective. You are in fact the only person (or at least one of the few) that should be able to use the shrines. Each player is unique in this regard. Don't see the game as a world full of soul shriven!

That's why there are ships to use as well. And you can actually walk between some of the provinces.

Holycannoli

Iago wrote: »

they did not exist in Vvardenfall Where tes 3 Took place. However if they are left over Ayleid Relics It stands to reason there would have never been any there to begin with. There were no Ayleid ruins there at all. although she abandoned to Dunmer strongholds did have a very similar transportation system.


and even if there had been a few scattered throughout the island its a long gap between eson the morrowind. any number of things could have been raised the way shrines from existence. they may have been dismantled on purpose or it could have been some kind of weird magical catastrophe involving them.

Honestly I don't care about retconning them. They didn't exist in those games because they weren't needed. Mundus stones didn't exist either because we chose our constellations for life.

I would love to see silt striders in ESO though, maybe even as a mount I modded wild ones into Morrowind.

TheShadowScout

Some TES games had fast travel options (I really liked the "giant flea taxi" silt strider transport from Morrowind...). They usually also had them in some rather limited form, requiring you to take a lot of trips on foot or horseback...

ESO has them the way we do because a great many potential players these days want fast travel in their online gaming. And I suppose they made them wayshrines instead of something else... uhm... because they maybe were a tiny little bit lazy? Personally I would have preferred something different, perhaps a taxi (flea or carriage) service available only in cities or something, but I can see how the player convinience might sway developers decisionss there...

But I guess we can always go with the "ayleid stuff that later fell into ruin and was replaced by more common transportation" fluff...

Nestor

rogue_gamer32b14_ESO wrote: »

So can someone explain to me where these immersion break eye sores come from and why aren't they around in the series?

The Wayshrines were invented by the Ayelids for them to get around the world. Only they are battery powered. The batteries wore out after Ayelids became extinct because no one was around to change the batteries.

So, the wayshrines became the models for all the Gazebos you see in Skyrim. Some of them were taken apart and studied so they could make them, the rest were deconned for building materials. There were even some new skill lines in the next era that reduced the time to research these and to extract more building materials from the ones that taken apart. These skill lines died out by Skyrim which is why there was never a Stonemason skill in that game.

Drawberrry

LMar

I will try to summarise my earlier post for simplicity's sake.

Wayshrines are just places to pray for most people of Tamriel.

It is only us the player, the soul shriven, who are unmoored from the world, that can use the wayshrines for travelling

Jeremy

rogue_gamer32b14_ESO wrote: »

Wayshrines are all over the place. Yet in every Elder Scrolls game, they don't exist. I know in Skyrim Dawnguard DLC Wayshrines for the Forgotten Vale were introduced. However they were one time travel and useless after. They also didn't exist outside Forgotten Vale.

So can someone explain to me where these immersion break eye sores come from and why aren't they around in the series?

The sad thing is that in many of the popular hit jobs on this game when it first came out (such as angry bob's or w/e his name was) the game was actually criticized for making players walk too much. Never mind the fact there is a Way shrine every few feet.
-
Just goes to show that pandering will only get you so far.

But to your point: you have to have convenient modes of travel if you want to compete in today's MMORPG industry. Many people just don't have the patience or time to spend hours traveling to where they want to go. So think of it as a necessary concession to creating a successful game.

I'm sympathetic to your point of view - but would like to point out ESO still manages to be more immersive than the other MMORPGs out there.

WraithAzraiel

Shunravi

Iago

LMar wrote: »

I will try to summarise my earlier post for simplicity's sake.

Wayshrines are just places to pray for most people of Tamriel.

It is only us the player, the soul shriven, who are unmoored from the world, that can use the wayshrines for travelling

Actually @LMar is 100% correct

Nestor

Holycannoli wrote: »

They didn't exist in Daggerfall and Morrowind and I consider those two games the superior TES games.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Propylon_Chamber

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Teleporter_Service

And, there were other ways to zap around the map:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Guild_Guide

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Mark

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Recall

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Divine_Intervention

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Almsivi_Intervention

Shunravi

In memory of a panda who lived under bridges.

dodgehopper_ESO

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I came in to this thread expecting it to be more along the lines of, "Magnets, how do they work?" I am highly disappointed.

And OP: they don't fit in the lore too well, but since this entire era is a big question mark in the history books, it doesn't really matter. Why are they there? Because this is an MMO, and people would never play an MMO without some form of fast-travel.

That is a pretty big assumption, and just wrong. The wayshrines I can look past, because its easy to explain away as some First or Second Era tech-magic thing like the propylon indices/chambers. Their necessity though in an MMO environment seems a bit ridiculous to me. That's just the lazy modern way of looking at MMO's, that doesn't mean people couldn't have fun actually riding their horses from point a to point b. Cyrodiil for instance doesn't feel overly large to me.

karmamule

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I came in to this thread expecting it to be more along the lines of, "Magnets, how do they work?" I am highly disappointed.

And OP: they don't fit in the lore too well, but since this entire era is a big question mark in the history books, it doesn't really matter. Why are they there? Because this is an MMO, and people would never play an MMO without some form of fast-travel.

That is a pretty big assumption, and just wrong. The wayshrines I can look past, because its easy to explain away as some First or Second Era tech-magic thing like the propylon indices/chambers. Their necessity though in an MMO environment seems a bit ridiculous to me. That's just the lazy modern way of looking at MMO's, that doesn't mean people couldn't have fun actually riding their horses from point a to point b. Cyrodiil for instance doesn't feel overly large to me.

While I too frequently ignore wayshrines and like running all over the place searching for herbs, chests, and ways to cause mischief, I think nerevarine's point is true as long as you qualify it as MOST people won't play an MMO without some form of fast-travel.

You and I and some others may enjoy the leisurely journey, but if an MMO wants to have a larger audience they need this sort of feature. If an MMO wants to appeal to a niche/hardcore crowd they might get away without it, but otherwise, sadly, it's a must.

Barta057

They came from the tears and whines of the general MMO community. Spawned magically by the necessity for fast travel, yet the inability for people to wait on taxis these days.

superquadockyb14_ESO

The way I figure it is that only soulless beings can use them as they are somewhat ethereal in nature. Kinda like lights meant to guide ghosts.

In the big picture of Elder Scrolls games, death was always permanent. So in this game I think its mostly just meant as a 'non-cannon' but stylistically interesting design choice.

They could also be associated with the daedra and get destroyed in the future because of ... uh hatred of daedra worship.

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO

In this lorebook. Wayshrines are supposedly there to act as guides to the afterlife, and veneration to the divines.

Since the construction of these wayshrines is theorized to be a calculated effort to reflect aetherius, it seems most likely that wayshrines are a remnant of the Reman Empire. This is the only time I can recall before Tiber Septim that all of Tamriel was unified, and the only way I can justify the building of totems to venerate the divines in places like Morrowind.

I also want to say that just because you don't see wayshrines in other TES games doesn't mean they're not there. Every game has to leave out things,

Woolenthreads

It's probably true that they could have gone with something as simple as Stagecoach Inns and essentially public transport.

It's also true that you summon and dismiss your horse into the ether within the game.

In truth I wouldn't be surprised if someone explained it away like this: "In 200 years of warfare with these 'wayshrines', they speak of, giving direct access into the fortresses and at various spots along roads, they must be destroyed for the security of the Empire. No more assassins must have easy access into our fortresses from somewhere along a road nor must enemies be given a mystic means to bypass our forces and reach our most vital areas."

Messy1

I blame Mai'q the Liar!!!

Sotha_Sil

Wayshrines actually exist in ES IV : Oblivion. They are spread out in Cyrodiil and are devoted to the Divines... they just added the teleportation use of it.

Throren

I like to imagine the wayshrines have no real basis in lore /are just there for convenience and game mechanics.

Enodoc

@LMar covered the major aspects quite well, as detailed in Wayshrines of Tamriel. They are built by the inhabitants of Tamriel as holy places of worship. It's an accident of circumstance that in ESO we can use them for fast-travel, due to the fact our souls have been unmoored from the Mundus. Wayshrines at UESP explains this a bit more.

So to answer the questions;

rogue_gamer32b14_ESO wrote: »

So can someone explain to me where these immersion break eye sores come from and why aren't they around in the series?

They came from regular people building ad-hoc sites of worship. They aren't around in the later games because they have fallen apart, like any structure that isn't maintained.

clocksstoppe

From me. I built them. Ask me anything.