The Elder Scrolls Online » Discussions


A LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY FROM ESO'S LOREMASTER

Tags: #ESO  #Lore 
  • Member
    February 6, 2019

     

    As many ESO players have discovered, Loremaster Lawrence Schick is leaving ESO. In true form, he left a letter to the community. I wanted to quote a portion of it, but I will leave the link so you can read the rest.

     

    Tamriel is an unusual fantasy world setting in that it was created over time by many different contributors rather than by one single vision. At some point, the folks at Bethesda Game Studios realized that, for an interactive world, that patchwork background was actually a virtue rather than a liability, something that should be recognized and incorporated into Tamriel’s design. So the brain trust decided that all of the Elder Scrolls world’s history, mythology, and culture—its lore, in short—would be delivered, not from on high, but always from the viewpoints of characters who inhabited the world they were describing. And these descriptions might vary, or even contradict each other, leaving it up to the players to decide what was and wasn’t true.

    Tamriel is a world where all history, past and future, is described in the ever-shifting texts of the mysterious Elder Scrolls, which tell always of what might be rather than of what is. And this is a uniquely suitable setting for a multiplayer online game that hosts players of many cultures and backgrounds. What could be better for characters in a role-playing game than an expansive world of many different cultures, each with its own history and myths, so you can be whoever you want to be? That sounds great—but what should your character believe is really true? Since all the stories of this world come from characters in the setting itself, and you can listen to them and read their books, you can decide that for yourself. And whatever that is, it’s as right as any other character’s beliefs, player or non-player, because your character lives in the same world they do.

    And what your character does, and says, and believes, becomes part of that world. For you, and whoever else shares the experience, what happened is now part of the lore. The non-player characters are all there, ready to share their stories with you, but it’s you who makes those stories live, because your character has agency and meaningful choices where the NPCs do not. Moreover, what your character does persists for you, and the stories you’ve told and the experiences you’ve shared with your friends live on in your own memories. You just added to the history of Tamriel.

    And not just in your memories, because Tamriel is a world that continues in constant development, and where that world goes next depends upon what you did and how you reacted to it! The game devs pay close attention to what you liked and what you didn’t. Recurring characters like Razum-dar and Naryu Virian don’t come back because the game devs think they should, they recur because YOU told the game devs that your experiences with those characters were significant and memorable. What you do in Tamriel, and how you feel about what you did, steers the direction of future development.

     

    https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/55715/?utm_content=The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20Online&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=Community&sf98475050=1

  • Member
    February 6, 2019

    I was going to make a post about this, but glad to see you beat me to it! Best wishes for Schick.

  • February 6, 2019

    I'm having a feeling that this is not a good thing for ESO. Let's hope I'm wrong? Or no more hope left?

  • Member
    February 6, 2019

    Yep, you're wrong. ;)

     

    There's multiple loremasters. He's the head guy. There will be others to take his place as loremaster and as liason to BGS.

     

    I'd crack up though if Michael Kirkbride shows up. lol

  • February 6, 2019

    Yeah, they always can pick Emil from Bethesda. Because KISS just works, you know. Though I think that at this point, he would be better than MK. At least with Emil ESO will still be ESO, even KISSed. With MK we might one day discover that we are playing a mix of Terminator and reversed Silmarillion.

  • Member
    February 6, 2019

    Justiciar Thorien said:

    Yeah, they always can pick Emil from Bethesda. Because KISS just works, you know. Though I think that at this point, he would be better than MK. At least with Emil ESO will still be ESO, even KISSed. With MK we might one day discover that we are playing a mix of Terminator and reversed Silmarillion.

     

    While I have no idea what KISS is, I can totally see Kirkbride going full-on acid trip with the game. This is the man who wrote Pelinal Whitestrake as a time-traveling cyborg psychopath. To be fair, I'd probably love to see MK go all-out C0DA, but I get that it wouldn't be the most popular move, story wise.

  • Member
    February 6, 2019
    It would be interesting, but personally I'd like the lead loremaster to be someone who can provide us some refreshing new lore without leaving our minds exploding by obscure ESO-teric (get it?) texts.
  • February 6, 2019

    I haven't taken a look at anything ESO related be it  lore or gameplay but I 've heard many saying that they didn't like what was going on with ESO which is the devs make something to put into the game in order to sell and make certain ES audiences attracted to the game and then just publish a bandaid in order to make it somewhat legit in regards to lore as well even if it changes already established lore in other ES games.

    That is what I was hearing some time ago in several gaming servers on Discord and Reddit if that is true or not I have no idea since I don't play ESO and haven't read anything from the lore in ESO. Someone who plays might be able to provide some insight into these claims.

  • Member
    February 6, 2019

    Duvain said:

    I haven't taken a look at anything ESO related be it  lore or gameplay but I 've heard many saying that they didn't like what was going on with ESO which is the devs make something to put into the game in order to sell and make certain ES audiences attracted to the game and then just publish a bandaid in order to make it somewhat legit in regards to lore as well even if it changes already established lore in other ES games.

    That is what I was hearing some time ago in several gaming servers on Discord and Reddit if that is true or not I have no idea since I don't play ESO and haven't read anything from the lore in ESO. Someone who plays might be able to provide some insight into these claims.

    What these people you've heard from have described is basically every elder scrolls game. As Lawrence Schick points out in his letter the lore in TES is built to contradict itself, so complaining about it happening in ESO is odd. Most of the events that have happened in TES which we as the player don't directly interact with will have multiple different accounts each telling it differently and sometimes outright contradicting each other, so trying to claim that a game changes "established" lore just doesn't seem right.

  • February 6, 2019

    In short ESO is the same like all other ES games and just adds to the huge cluster fuck that ES lore is and you will have even more people arguing and confused and not know what to make of things.

    To many this is good and I also believe that but when done with a certain moderation and you do not go 100% on it. It is good to have a few debatable things here and there in games' lores since interesting discussions can come out of this but ES took it to a few next levels, it is not that great from a reader's perspective to have such an openly debatable lore it just gets frustrating after a certain point and that 's why I stopped paying too much attention to ES lore a few years back.

    By now from what I saw some time back in most lore "hubs" most people have their own head canon and many are in certain groups who believe certain things to be canon and there are other people/groups saying that these are not canon and they have their own interpretation. As a reader this is very frustrating, it's OK to leave a few things up to the reader/player but not almost everything being material to change whenever or being undecided and that 's why I didn't delve too far into ES lore nor engaged in many lore discussions about lore in places like Discord, Reddit etc.

    Of course from a buisness perspective I can't blame them since they want to sell and we need to understand that with BGS ES games and ESO first goes the game development and what they want to sell and then goes the lore according to what the selling product is so it is not surprising to have the lore being what it is right now but still some moderation over the "this is this but it also might be something else" would be much better from a reader's perspective.