I think if the Dwemer hadn’t have disappeared technology would have continued to advance. Their disappearance forever altered the future of technology on Nirn.

robpr wrote: »

Jeffrey530 wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

red_emu wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Jeffrey530 wrote: »

Probably because there's magic and people will naturally focus on aspects of it rather than technology. Why make a fridge when you can learn ice magic etc. Plus dwemers never shared their tech with others so when they disappear, the knowledge is gone

Why make a Crossbow or a Sword when you have Magic? same logic applies yet those things still exist.

Not everyone on Nirn is magically gifted. It is actually not that common. Some races are more gifted than the others. Some, with affinity for magic will become mages, healers etc but some can only tap into Aetherius a little bit. We are used to being able to perform the most powerful of magics but that's only because we're the Nerevarine, Vestige etc. Then there is the mages guild that sells scrolls and potions but as stated many times: to those that have the coin, so I imagine it would be very expensive to equip your entire army with a fireball scroll, rather than swords and bows.

Then why not build Guns instead of Crossbows?

There's no gunpowder in TES I suppose, also it is easy for someone who knows gun exist and how it works to say that. Crossbows to guns is a huge jump in technology, and probably easier just to hire mages that hurl fireballs at enemies.

You can also say why not build vehicles and atom bombs, if devs do that it'll just become fallout...

Gunpowder is Dwemer technology
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tribunal:A_Show_of_Power (quest in TES III Tribunal where you literally blow up entrance to ruins with dwarven C4)
Also gunpowder is somewhat less practical if you have magic. Mages can control destruction radius at will, won't explode when transporting and don't require manufacturing. There is also enchanting: why using a gun that need reloading after each shot when you can cast lightning bolt with just a ring on your finger.
Even if mages are not that common, having at least one in a settlement is suffice for everyone to benefit and dont pursue to replace the convenience.

Only thing that can be viewed strange here is that armor and weapon materials don't advance.

Nope, that argument doesn't fly either. Personal defense is a thing or there would only be a couple of guards in each town. In fact, the only NPCs that don't carry conventional arms are those walking around in town...all the ones you see out and about have swords, bows, etc. Bows have limited ammunition(though MMOs tend to ignore that fact), but they still exist on Nirn.

The only real explanation that holds water is the OP's...it is being actively suppressed, though in reality, like all games and most books...the creators of the storyline just didn't stop to think about it.

If it weren't for the Dwemer ruins, I would say it could be explained by the fact than in 10,000 years of recorded history on earth, most of our advances only happened in the last 400 years....but we didnt have ancient technology sitting around everywhere showing us that something was possible either.

There’s plenty of native tribes here that never really progressed until the Europeans invaded. Just look at the Americas and Australia for instance.

EDIT: why are quotes bugging out here? And why did a partial incomplete reply paste as a new comment at the same time? This forum code, y'all....


/Off-topic
Racist AND incorrect. (I'm not saying this poster personally is racist. I'm saying what they write here is a common misconception heavily based in xenophobia and racism.)

Non-European indigenous societies simply grew and evolved differently from many European societies. It doesn't make them "more primitive" or "less evolved" as peoples and cultures. Just. Different. Assuming that certain specific European cultures are the gold standard for the evolution of human society as a whole is the racist assumption that has been perpetuated for centuries to justify colonization. "It's okay for us to take over other countries and destroy their ancient cultures and structures and force them to assimilate into OUR culture because we're actually HELPING them evolve as humans!"

(For example, if Native American cultures were so "primitive," then please explain to me why white European settlers borrowed so heavily from Natives' medical, agricultural, social, architechtural, and governmental advancements when building the nation we now call the United States. Yet another victim of colonizer narratives rewriting history is that so few Americans actually know where much of the basis for our modern society even comes from. Instead, you get taught that the white immigrants basically "saved" the poor ignorant "Injun savages" from themselves. But it's okay because the highly fluffed and edited story of Thanksgiving exists, right?? /sarcasm)


/On-topic
I agree with others that fantasy settings are really bad about never advancing their level of technology. Just because you can magic away the contents of your chamber pot doesn't mean there's no need for indoor plumbing! Oh, you can make portals? Cool, now what about the non-mages who would really benefit from, say, public transportation that isn't a slow horse and cart? Maybe magically fueled fast-transport or something? Why are so many things that would be beneficial for society in general being reserved for the "haves" with magic while the "have-nots" without strong magic apparently never realize that they could invent their own technological alternatives?* (This is actually a common theme I tackle in my own fantasy writing and would love to see more of in general.) Elder Scrolls has in-universe reasons why technological advancement isn't a thing, but I don't personally think they're really great reasons. More like an excuse for the game writers to never have to worry about advancing society on top of the million other things they have to juggle for each game in the series. Honestly, I find it actually kinda hurts the game series lore. You can have evolution without destroying the core fabric of the games. I'm not going to stop playing Elder Scrolls just because some alchemist discovered penicillin.

*Because while Elder Scrolls tries very hard to be pseudo-European fantasy in style, it's actually very, very American in presentation--for example, the way it presents and tackles capitalism in many of its in-game societies. Capitalism is not exclusive to American society, but the way it shows up in Elder Scrolls frequently reminds me that I'm playing an American game. However, that's another discussion for another thread.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

In the real world:

Nostalgia is more marketable than progress. Stagnation is more economic to design than change. There is a risk that significantly altering the game's aesthetics or mechanics, look and feel might actually break the IP.

This. It's a series of games; made by modern humans, for modern humans. It's not a real world existing over thousands of years, or an attempt at the accurate simulation of such.

Great replies here.

I just remembered the entire point that got me thinking about all this.
Skyrim takes place i think it was 1000? years in the future, so why are all the towns, villages and cities essentially unchanged in that time?
No new houses in Solitude? Nobody renovated? After any wars they rebuilt the same down too the brick?

Thats the laziness in game design i was starting out from, the rest about time etc just kinda snowballed out of that one thought XD

TradoTheOne wrote: »

Not only broken, but dragonbroken.

Very delightfully succinctly said.

have in mind that not counting the last 100 or 200 years, the rest of our history, things progressed really slowly.

How they handle aged buidings or buildings in disrepair has always bugged me games , and TES are some of the worse.

You will come up on buildings that priests talk about how so man thousands of travelers come and how important it is, yet all through the halls columns and stuff re crumbling to the ground. Like if you actually used this and it was important like you say this wouldn't be this way.

Or in Summerset you have the Altmer obsessed with perfection, but then have bridges that are broken underwater...umm yeah no that would be fixed real quick probably. You don't have to have something falling apart to give the sense of age to it.