The Elder Scrolls - Novel Foreshadows TESV?

Kotaku has noticed a book retailer's blurb for the upcoming Elder Scrolls novel The Infernal City mentions TESV. I'm not seeing the same thing, so perhaps it has been changed - but here's the novel synopsis they reported:

"A novel that takes places forty-five years after the Oblivion Crisis, which is the story of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion game and the expansion pack Shivering Isles. It partly bridges the gap for the next game, which is set 200 years after the Oblivion crisis."

More information.

Wow…200 years later.
Anyone care to venture a guess that, even so, technology in the world of TES will not have changed a wit? You'll still be fighting with tricked-out quasi-medieval armaments and magic spells. Woe, woe to technological evolution.

Besides, after the graphical-orgy that was Oblivion (so packed with Bloom™ that legitimately meaningful RPG-goodness couldn't find room to squeeze in), who cares?

Didn't all of TES1 to 4 take place in a 50 year span? By placing it 200 years after the last game it sounds like Bethesda is trying replace the old setting/lore with a drastically different setting, a clean slate.

How further dumbed down will it be this time?

200 hundred years after Oblivion also means it's 10 years after the nuclear holocaust. This will be a prequel to Fallout 3, or in other words, Oblivion with guns.

Originally Posted by Barghest
How further dumbed down will it be this time?

somebody will have to beat dragon age on that scale, right?
good thing they start planning ahead of time.
________
COACH PURSES

*passes out cookies*

Looking forward to this. Oblivion wasn't great but with a few mods it certainly wasn't a bad game. Assuming it uses the same engine as IV and F3 it will give them a good chance to work out the kinks and add some more substance.

200 years in the future? I'm thinking steampunk

Nice to see additional confirmation. Very much looking forward to it. Oblivion was disappointing but still a good game. I assume they will junk (or at least greatly dial back) the world-levelling mechanic, after all the negative feedback they got. If they also give us some more varied landscapes, make the location-finding more challenging, add more voice actors, I'll be a happy elder scroller.

Originally Posted by bjon045
Looking forward to this. Oblivion wasn't great but with a few mods it certainly wasn't a bad game.

The mods did fix a lot BUT the main quest was still there and horribly disappointing…

Really looking forward to this. Oblivion didn't (to my mind) leave any major world changing event or unsolved mysteries hanging over things, unlike Morrowind. Having a large time gap (if true) would enable them to bring about a decent refresh. And for @~$^&*s sake tell us what happened to the dwarves.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
200 years in the future? I'm thinking steampunk

I wouldn't be suprised. It could be very cool if they did it right. There have already been elements of steampunk in morrowind. The only thing I worry about if they advance the technology is that there might heavy focus on more advanced firearms in the game which, combined with the dreary dickensian landscapes of many steampunk settings, would make it feel a little too much like fallout 3.

If they do advance the technology, I hope they keep it mostly pre industrial revolution- with the exception of salvaged dwemer items. Obviously a dwemer steamship or airship or two is always a good decision.

If you don't like the main quest you could either not play it or play some of the total conversions out. (the only ones I can think of were translated from German)

I am also thinking they may go steampunk since they have already had some steampunk with the Dwemer. I think they could figure out how Dwemeri technology works and develop a steampunk society from that.

EDIT: I think it will be closer to how Arcanum was since this is a fantasy world transitioning to an industrial society. It probably wouldn't have Fallout 3 type weapons since the guns would be either steam based or early gunpowder based and will be mostly one shot and reload style.

I seriously doubt they would actually go steampunk, and I don't think it would be a good idea anyways, not for a TES game.

Morrowind already had steampunk, didn't it? Or what do you call those …



But Nah… I'll bet that it's not steampunk on the scale of something like arcanum or thief2.

Morrowind is steampunk (though more Subtle than e.g Arcanum), i think it really fits the series, Oblivion was a bit too traditionall imo..

It takes more than a few mechanical constructs to make something steampunk.

I wouldn't mind if TESV was similar to Oblivion, except without any type of enemy or loot scaling, much better AI, and no hand holding (compass, etc). Those were the main things that diminished TESIV for me.

Also, *please* optimize the PC version for PC gamers this time, instead of just giving us a straight port of the Xbox version like they did with Oblivion.

Originally Posted by JDR13
It takes more than a few mechanical constructs to make something steampunk.

Well it's not pure steampunk, its just subtle elements of it.

I think FO3 (which is their current version of the engine) is really well optimized for a game that is loading cells on the fly and has AI scripts going on all the time. It's a tremendous step compared to Morrowind. Tried it on my 360 too and i was really surprised to how smooth it was, though not as good looking as on PC.. PC version has many advantages compared to the 360, both graphically and mod wise.

That's not what I meant when I said "optimized". I'm talking about the game itself, not performance.

I want it to look and feel like a PC game, not a console game. It's ridiculous when we have to install a mod just to make the GUI more PC-like.