Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-76.23.148.161-20140619050605/@comment-24999978-20140705152335

Saratje wrote: For many of us Kirkbride making claims is as empty as George Lucas suddenly crawling out of the woodwork now that he has retired, making new claims about the upcoming Star Wars films the moment he doesn't agree with how they turned out. Or the late major Paddy Roy Bates having proclaimed himself as king of the Principality of Sealand, which is actually nothing more than an oilrig off the eastern coast of the UK. Where the major is not part of the Commonwealth government he cannot proclaim himself king, George Lucas sold the intellectual property of Star Wars and cannot legally write for it anymore and Kirkbride is not a Bethesda employee, thus automatically voiding any claim he makes about the franchise. There's no right of inheritence because you wrote the canon first, there's stone cold, hard copywrite laws about who churns out the content of a franchise and who does not. It's a sad state of affairs yes, but it's set in stone no matter what anyone says. Property law is constituted, not malleable. Watching fans of the first three games clawing at scraps of ingame reference to interpret the latest games in a very different way than they are obviously written is like watching Mormons desperately reading passages over and over to find loopholes to support their own believes and it saddens me. Don't try to turn TES: Skyrim and whatever comes next into a Kirkbride store. By proud of the inheritence of the old games instead and treat those separate from what you will get in the future.

Because brace yourselves, Lawrence Schick, the new lore writer who currently worked at Elder Scrolls Online has been appointed as lead generic lore writer for the whole franchise and he already announced his intent on retconning vague or opended lore events to be also comprehensible for players who are new to the franchise. Expect our dragonbreaks to be more grounded and far less psychedelic in future franchises, with a fair amount of handholding to make sure we really understand what happened instead with little to no space for reinterpretation. Schick already rewrote Alessia as being a Dovahkiin identical to Septim and the Skyrim player. He also rewrote that when her line ended, the flames went out and Oblivion has begun to over-run Tamriel. He added references to that a new Dovahkiin emperor will be born to relight the flames (who'd be Tiber Septim) who will leave a new dynasty which when died out, will make the flames go out once more. He even makes vague references towards this being a neverending cycle where again a new Dovahkiin will be born (the Skyrim player) who may start a new dynasty once more.

So yea, sure, you can always choose to believe what you want, but you probably won't encounter more Kirkbride-esque writing in TES 6, if anything some of it may be reverted to make the storyline more concrete for future gamers. If you look at it without a bias, the only proper Kirkbride reference in TES 5 is Heimskr's rant, which I think is nothing more than an easter egg, a respectful nod towards a former employee, minor recognition at best, good sport.

Don't forget, nobody can take away your memories of the Kirkbride games. Enjoy the Kirkbride games as something separate. Enjoy the C0DA and if they offend you, forget about the future installments. Or try to enjoy the newer games as a whole new story. But don't go and develop a Peter Pan syndrome by clinging to your childhood memories of the Elder Scrolls. Whatever Kirkbride intended for the franchise seems to have lost favour with whichever CEO's make the call on what they believe sells best as franchise canon in future TES installments. For someone who doesn't even have a pair, I grew bigger balls than those who keep denying what the franchise has become through a bad case of emperor's new clothes, simply because I have come to acknowledge the fact that whatever Kirkbride had wanted for the franchise is now a pipe dream. If people still want to be a Peter Pan and keep believing they're in Neverland, let them. It just makes me a little sad.

But don't bother replying, I've stopped having petty did so, did not arguments for a long time, I know I won't react in return. I just said what I wanted to say, as much as you all say what you want to say, and I'm not obligated to reply as much as any of you aren't either. I just regret that this wiki lost a lot of its credibility by biasing for and against Kirkbride, creating a division.

On another note:

''This wiki once ruled when there still weren't any community features, when the main goal was still to provide an immersive TES encyclopedia which put that awful UESP wiki (which is little more than an ice cold clerical database) to shame. Perhaps the best thing to happen to this wiki is to close the community features and make it a wiki again, with its unique and immersive articles that show the writers as being truly involved with the story with passion. This wiki turned into some kind of TES-chan. Kill your darlings as they say, and polish this jewel up once more.'' Your claim would make more sense if Kirkbride had stopped writing lore since leaving Bethesda all together, but since he has come out with perhaps his best ideas after leaving, it is hardly clinging to the past at all. Rather, some fans would prefer that their lore was far less superficial, and enjoy his works. Yes, legally, Kirkbride does not have a claim to TES lore (he never claims he has, anyway, he has always stated that it is under the Free Association for the fans), but that does not mean that we cannot incorporate more interesting features to our story, rather than throwing out perfectly good lore for the sake of it. Of course, technically Bethesda has their own canon, but if the fanbase wants something different, what is there to stop them? They can accept what they want, rather than having to intentionally either dumb down lore or cast aside concepts which they enjoy, if they want, the lore is for us, the Free Association under the House of WE.

Your claim about Schick, too, is rather outdated. There used to be much greater fears about his relation to the lore before the NDA was lifted, for the simple reason that those who did not like the game were not bothered about spreading only the negative aspects and being kicked out of the beta, while those who truely enjoyed the game wished to contine playing and so did not reveal information. After the NDA was lifted, however, and after the game itself was released, many great additions to the lore have been found. I will admit, TESO is a mixed basket, as there are some questionable choices, but there is also great lore to be found. Aurbic Enigma IV: The Elden Tree is one I often use. In addition, both Zenimax and Bethesda are fans of what Kirkbride does, and he still keeps in touch with some of them. Earlier this year, I recall Kirkbride having a discussion with Schick himself who was a fan of C0DA. As for the Kirkbride references in Skyrim, it depends on how you would define that. The visual aethestics for Skyrim itself are based off of the description of the Pocket Guide to the Empire, which they kept in mind when designing the province, and of which Kirkbride had heavy influence. Heimskr's speech is rather important in further showing Bethesda's support for concepts such as CHIM, but there are more references out there like the painted cow. You seem to have missed the end of the so called 'Canon Wars' earlier in the year; Bethesda, Zenimax and MK do not hate or compete with each other, they all want to better the lore. Bethesda and MK have had a mutual relationship for a long time, but TESO inflamed things at first (hence the 'Canon Wars', a weird name, but it refers to the divisions in the lore community arguing whether MK, TESO etc was, or should be, canon). I disagree that such a major division exists. There are a few individuals who like to enflame things, but overall, at least things are much better in the lore community than it used to be.