Oblivion Portals - Why no Gates?

michaelemanuel11b16_ESO

I've spoken about this in the feedback thread, but I think this needs broader attention. For a year-long adventure called "Gates of Oblivion", the spherical portals that we currently have in Blackwood are truly lacklustre. The main game has already shown that Dagon is able to open Oblivion Gates (ala TES:IV) in Tamriel, so why the sudden shift towards the orb-like portals? I'm struggling to understand the logic behind it all and it's incredibly disappointing.

MaegMaeg

Was wondering the same thing. At first I thought the orb portals were placeholders, because they look so stupid. And we already got the known Oblivion gates in the game, why not just use them? They are found in the city of ash dungones, entrance to MSA and during some overland quests and probably a hundred other places.

Benzux

While I do agree that the small portals are a bit underwhelming, I believe the reveal stream answered this question. Since this takes place hundreds of years before TES:IV, Dagon hasn't quite perfected his Oblivion Gate system yet - this is his "first experiment" at a proper, full-scale invasion of Tamriel using portals like these.

A fair assumption is that the Oblivion Gate seen in City of Ash was constructed on Tamriel by the Dagon cult operating in Whisper Grove, and then used as an anchor point in Mundus by Dagon, rather than being the spontaneously appearing counterpart to a gate built in the Deadlands, like the ones we see in TES:IV. I believe every other Gate we see in the base game/previous DLCs is not connected with Dagon, so they can be ruled out of this. Maelstrom Arena is a demiplane created by the demiprince Fa-Nuit-Hen, so the gate leading there was created by him, or his mortal servants, and only shares similarities with Dagon's Gates (perhaps the resemblance to the Daedric letter "Oht" is some sort of "standard" among gate-like portals). I can't remember if Dragonstar Arena had any Oblivion Gates, but again, the arena is Boethiah's doing, and not Dagon's (and any gates there were also likely built on Tamriel).

opaj

@Benzux -- Two more notable locations with Oblivion Gates. Spoilers for the base game follow, of course.

• Edrald Estate in Rivenspire: There's an Oblivion Gate in the undercroft here, and the nearby journals and notes indicate that it leads to the Deadlands. It's already there when the player arrives and appears to be a permanent fixture of the place, lending credence to your hypothesis about Dagonists constructing it rather than summoning it.
• Firsthold in Auridon: While Lady Estre eventually ended up in Coldharbour due to some bizarre last-minute dealings, she was a Dagonist throughout most of her plot, and the Oblivion Gates here appear to behave like classic TES IV gates: they appeared suddenly and you must destroy the sigil stones to close them. Unlike TES IV's gates, they don't collapse when you close them, though, but multiple characters mention that Estre is working with Mehrunes Dagon and that the gates lead to the Deadlands.

I haven't decided for myself what I'm going to make of the situation yet, but more data is good, yes?

I've avoided the Blackwood main quest for spoiler reasons, but a question for anyone who has played through it: do they address why Dagon is using portals instead of gates?

KingArthasMenethil

opaj wrote: »

@Benzux -- Two more notable locations with Oblivion Gates. Spoilers for the base game follow, of course.

• Edrald Estate in Rivenspire: There's an Oblivion Gate in the undercroft here, and the nearby journals and notes indicate that it leads to the Deadlands. It's already there when the player arrives and appears to be a permanent fixture of the place, lending credence to your hypothesis about Dagonists constructing it rather than summoning it.
• Firsthold in Auridon: While Lady Estre eventually ended up in Coldharbour due to some bizarre last-minute dealings, she was a Dagonist throughout most of her plot, and the Oblivion Gates here appear to behave like classic TES IV gates: they appeared suddenly and you must destroy the sigil stones to close them. Unlike TES IV's gates, they don't collapse when you close them, though, but multiple characters mention that Estre is working with Mehrunes Dagon and that the gates lead to the Deadlands.

I haven't decided for myself what I'm going to make of the situation yet, but more data is good, yes?

I've avoided the Blackwood main quest for spoiler reasons, but a question for anyone who has played through it: do they address why Dagon is using portals instead of gates?

And the City of Ash Dungeons which is all about an Oblivion Gate invasion in 1 and 2.

Benzux

opaj wrote: »

@Benzux -- Two more notable locations with Oblivion Gates. Spoilers for the base game follow, of course.

• Edrald Estate in Rivenspire: There's an Oblivion Gate in the undercroft here, and the nearby journals and notes indicate that it leads to the Deadlands. It's already there when the player arrives and appears to be a permanent fixture of the place, lending credence to your hypothesis about Dagonists constructing it rather than summoning it.
• Firsthold in Auridon: While Lady Estre eventually ended up in Coldharbour due to some bizarre last-minute dealings, she was a Dagonist throughout most of her plot, and the Oblivion Gates here appear to behave like classic TES IV gates: they appeared suddenly and you must destroy the sigil stones to close them. Unlike TES IV's gates, they don't collapse when you close them, though, but multiple characters mention that Estre is working with Mehrunes Dagon and that the gates lead to the Deadlands.

I haven't decided for myself what I'm going to make of the situation yet, but more data is good, yes?

I've avoided the Blackwood main quest for spoiler reasons, but a question for anyone who has played through it: do they address why Dagon is using portals instead of gates?

Ah, of course, the Edrald Estate. It slipped my mind when I wrote my original post, but yes, it would fall under the category of "Built on Tamriel".

As for Firsthold, it has been years since I did the AD storyline, so I had completely forgotten about High Kinlady Estre's connection to Dagon. The portals there definitely clash somewhat with the hypothesis I had created based on what was said about Dagon's plans in Blackwood. The obvious answer is that back when ZoS created the Auridon questline and decided to add these Oblivion Gates, they wouldn't have known that they would eventually do what they've done in Blackwood, but that isn't a sufficient enough answer here.

I would assume we find out at least something from the Blackwood main quest relating to this. As a console player, I won't have access to the chapter in a while, so for now all I can do is speculate. Perhaps it has something to do with scale? There were only three gates in Firsthold, but the Blackwood area is significantly larger. Maybe "Dagon hasn't perfected the Gates yet" means that he doesn't have the means to launch an attack similar to the one on Firsthold on a larger scale like he eventually does in TES:IV, and is "testing the waters" with a different approach in Blackwood?

KingArthasMenethil

Benzux wrote: »

While I do agree that the small portals are a bit underwhelming, I believe the reveal stream answered this question. Since this takes place hundreds of years before TES:IV, Dagon hasn't quite perfected his Oblivion Gate system yet - this is his "first experiment" at a proper, full-scale invasion of Tamriel using portals like these.

A fair assumption is that the Oblivion Gate seen in City of Ash was constructed on Tamriel by the Dagon cult operating in Whisper Grove, and then used as an anchor point in Mundus by Dagon, rather than being the spontaneously appearing counterpart to a gate built in the Deadlands, like the ones we see in TES:IV. I believe every other Gate we see in the base game/previous DLCs is not connected with Dagon, so they can be ruled out of this. Maelstrom Arena is a demiplane created by the demiprince Fa-Nuit-Hen, so the gate leading there was created by him, or his mortal servants, and only shares similarities with Dagon's Gates (perhaps the resemblance to the Daedric letter "Oht" is some sort of "standard" among gate-like portals). I can't remember if Dragonstar Arena had any Oblivion Gates, but again, the arena is Boethiah's doing, and not Dagon's (and any gates there were also likely built on Tamriel).

City of Ash is an Invasion like the Oblivion Crisis because both gates opened by people on Tamriel and is closed with a Sigil Stone.

The Oblivion Gates during TES4 are meant to have been opened by the Mythic Dawn think like how we see the Worm Cult with Daedric Anchors.

PrinceShroob

According to Liminal Bridges, portals to Oblivion require an intermediary on Nirn to open. Jearl's Orders say "The Master was pleased to hear of your activities outside of Chorrol. The more gates that we open, the nearer we are to the glorious Cleansing..." which suggests that during the Oblivion Crisis, the Mythic Dawn busied themselves with preparing and using Sigil Stones to open gates across Tamriel (which is probably why we also see the corpses of Mythic Dawn agents inside certain gates). We do see some gates spawn during the Defense of Bruma without any Mythic Dawn present, but it's possible that either gate openings can be "delayed" or the Daedra present were opening the gates themselves (since Liminal Bridges does not state that the "mechanic" need be a mortal).

While oht-shaped Oblivion gates are present in the game without Blackwood, there is one thing Dagon could be testing -- Great Gates, large enough to unleash Daedric Siege Engines. Alternatively, Dagon could be attempting to generate a portal for invasion with no intermediary on Nirn (Daedric Princes apparently have no trouble creating stable portals into their realms, but as Haskill implies in Shivering Isles, creating a portal to let something out is another matter).

KingArthasMenethil

PrinceShroob wrote: »

According to Liminal Bridges, portals to Oblivion require an intermediary on Nirn to open. Jearl's Orders say "The Master was pleased to hear of your activities outside of Chorrol. The more gates that we open, the nearer we are to the glorious Cleansing..." which suggests that during the Oblivion Crisis, the Mythic Dawn busied themselves with preparing and using Sigil Stones to open gates across Tamriel (which is probably why we also see the corpses of Mythic Dawn agents inside certain gates). We do see some gates spawn during the Defense of Bruma without any Mythic Dawn present, but it's possible that either gate openings can be "delayed" or the Daedra present were opening the gates themselves (since Liminal Bridges does not state that the "mechanic" need be a mortal).

While oht-shaped Oblivion gates are present in the game without Blackwood, there is one thing Dagon could be testing -- Great Gates, large enough to unleash Daedric Siege Engines. Alternatively, Dagon could be attempting to generate a portal for invasion with no intermediary on Nirn (Daedric Princes apparently have no trouble creating stable portals into their realms, but as Haskill implies in Shivering Isles, creating a portal to let something out is another matter).

Eldamil as well gives Mythic Dawn opening the gates.
"I was one of Mankar Camoran's chief lieutenants. I helped plan the Emperor's assassination. I opened the Great Gate at Kvatch. We were The Chosen. We saw more clearly than ordinary mortals. We would destroy the world, and remake it. Mankar Camoran was our leader, our teacher, our Master. He had the secret knowledge. He dealt with Mehrunes Dagon as an equal."

TBH the Mythic Dawn not being at the games seems more of a TES4 gameplay thing then a lore thing (wouldn't be the first time like the whole mess with Leyawiin and the Niben). I know the cancelled PSP Oblivion game set in High Rock had Mythic Dawn agents by an Oblivion gate.

Benzux

PrinceShroob wrote: »

According to Liminal Bridges, portals to Oblivion require an intermediary on Nirn to open. Jearl's Orders say "The Master was pleased to hear of your activities outside of Chorrol. The more gates that we open, the nearer we are to the glorious Cleansing..." which suggests that during the Oblivion Crisis, the Mythic Dawn busied themselves with preparing and using Sigil Stones to open gates across Tamriel (which is probably why we also see the corpses of Mythic Dawn agents inside certain gates). We do see some gates spawn during the Defense of Bruma without any Mythic Dawn present, but it's possible that either gate openings can be "delayed" or the Daedra present were opening the gates themselves (since Liminal Bridges does not state that the "mechanic" need be a mortal).

While oht-shaped Oblivion gates are present in the game without Blackwood, there is one thing Dagon could be testing -- Great Gates, large enough to unleash Daedric Siege Engines. Alternatively, Dagon could be attempting to generate a portal for invasion with no intermediary on Nirn (Daedric Princes apparently have no trouble creating stable portals into their realms, but as Haskill implies in Shivering Isles, creating a portal to let something out is another matter).

Liminal Bridges at least confirms some of my hypothesis. In City of Ash, the Bosmer cultists likely created the Gate seen there and acted as the intermediary to allow Dagon to open the portal to the Deadlands. In Firsthold, the High Kinlady took that role.

From what we've seen so far (people on the PTS can confirm or debunk this), the Oblivion portals found in Blackwood don't seem to be tended by mortal servants the same way Molag Bal's Dark Anchors are, so your second guess might be right. Dagon is testing the waters with smaller portals, not quite able to bring out a full invasion force through them yet. Even so, we can say that he won't succeed in creating portals without help from Mundus, given his use of the Mythic Dawn in the Third Era.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

And yet the actual oblivion gates appear in the prologue quest and in some part of the main quest, there is even a furnishing item of one.

ZeroDPS

michaelemanuel11b16_ESO wrote: »

I've spoken about this in the feedback thread, but I think this needs broader attention. For a year-long adventure called "Gates of Oblivion", the spherical portals that we currently have in Blackwood are truly lacklustre. The main game has already shown that Dagon is able to open Oblivion Gates (ala TES:IV) in Tamriel, so why the sudden shift towards the orb-like portals? I'm struggling to understand the logic behind it all and it's incredibly disappointing.

MaegMaeg wrote: »

Was wondering the same thing. At first I thought the orb portals were placeholders, because they look so stupid. And we already got the known Oblivion gates in the game, why not just use them? They are found in the city of ash dungones, entrance to MSA and during some overland quests and probably a hundred other places.

agree 1000000000% can anyone give some explanation????
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Vevvev

Another thing of note is in the Blackwood story miniature Oblivion Gates burst out of the ground to. So.... they have the mini gates.... so why not use this mini gates instead of the circular portal? Not a full invasion ready portal like the ones of TES4:Oblivion, but hits harder on the Nostalgia than the spinning circle.

ZeroDPS

this spinning circle is like placeholder of real portal.... strange with need explanation from devs

Faulgor

Vevvev wrote: »

Another thing of note is in the Blackwood story miniature Oblivion Gates burst out of the ground to. So.... they have the mini gates.... so why not use this mini gates instead of the circular portal? Not a full invasion ready portal like the ones of TES4:Oblivion, but hits harder on the Nostalgia than the spinning circle.

That's really why their explanation "Dagon hasn't figured out how to make proper gates yet" doesn't make any sense, imo.

I understand that they didn't want to rehash TES4 so obviously, and spawning gates in the overworld outside of quest and story instances would have been too much. That's the real reason.

I think the only difference I can see between the two is that maybe, at least in ESO, Gates have to be opened from Nirn, whereas Portals are more like Oblivion leaking into Blackwood.

ZeroDPS

Dagon hasn't figured out how to make proper gates yet


so if big gates are not portals kind of, so what they are??? because imho BOTH gates and portals(round ones) are gates to oblivion, also the year long story name is GATES OF OBLIVION

KingArthasMenethil

In the Deadlands Q&A they answered my question about Oblivion Gates and Portals. From the devs the Oblivion Portal is "meant" to be like the version before the Oblivion gate.

Now I put quotations on meant to be because In Blackwood (Rockgrove) and Base game (City of Ash, Firsthold and the Edrald Estate) they use Oblivion gates.

Dragonlord573

There are even Oblivion Gates that are used by the world boss at the Broken Xanmeer in Blackwood. They have animations for forming out of the ground and everything. It makes no sense to have the spherical portals.

ZeroDPS

I think we need explanation....

Spell-Slinger

While on the topic of Oblivion gates, why is it that the ESO version of them look way worse than TES IV, a 10+ year-old game? Look at this thing, it fizzles, it vibrates with evil unstable magic.

Meanwhile the ESO version is just kinda... flat and not even fire-looking.

Elsonso

I thought they answered this on some ESO Live...

Vevvev

Spell-Slinger wrote: »

While on the topic of Oblivion gates, why is it that the ESO version of them look way worse than TES IV, a 10+ year-old game? Look at this thing, it fizzles, it vibrates with evil unstable magic.

Meanwhile the ESO version is just kinda... flat and not even fire-looking.

Always wondered that to over six years ago. Oblivion's landscape at the time was absolutely amazing, and it's gates looked incredibly menacing and evil. ESO's are a bit.... tame in comparison.

prof-dracko

Elsonso wrote: »

I thought they answered this on some ESO Live...

They did, but the answer was immensely unsatisfying and doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.

Elsonso

prof-dracko wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I thought they answered this on some ESO Live...

They did, but the answer was immensely unsatisfying and doesn't hold up under any scrutiny.

And yet, it is the canon answer... (edit: don't get me wrong, you can write whatever fan fiction you want. I am not telling you not to, just that the answer that is going to go in the books, if it goes in any books, is what they have stated. Actually, they can put as many theories into the books as they want, and they are all canon.)