i really think it would add a lot to the game if you ate a piece of chicken it showed you eating the chicken, or if you drank something it showed you drink it.
maybe the animation is longer if you are sitting, but it doesn't have to be a long animation. or maybe if you eat something cooked it showed you eat it as long as you were idle.
just some ideas, it doesn't have to be this complicated. but i'd really like an animation to go with comsumption.
plus it would keep you from cheaply using a bunch of potions in the heat of battle, kind of like in the witcher.

what do you think?

I partially approve this message.

It is unrequired in my book, but it would be cool if it was in. But sadly, it will most likely not be there.

I think it is kinda superfluous
also it would kinda mess with combat, you are trying to run away, but you stop to drink

Meh, in my opinion just leave this sort of thing to mods for the PC, in development the time can be spent on much more important things. This is a open world RPG not The Sims: Skyrim.

It's not hard to "pretend" that your guy just ate the food.

The Havok Behavior animation system is one of the most advanced on the market. If you can think of it, then it's entirely possible, but the real question is that it is entirely dependent on implementation and conditions brought up by the game. For instance, with enough skill you could probably create a "chicken eating" animation, but if the engine has no function to detect what you are eating and then execute an animation as a result of that, it will be more difficult. And you also need to do it properly without bugs, glitches, or visual anomalies if you want to create a realistic experience. If not automatically included on release, I could see it being modded in by skilled individuals. And if it can't be modded in on release, we'd just need to wait for SKSE

Theres already been 2 threads on this. Next time use the search button.

Any animations would be a wonderful improvement. Like an alchemy mixing animation with pestle and morar and measuring beakers and other instruments. Or some nice little idle animations of your character shrugging off the cold or yawning if you've been away to long.

thats the point. they could make potions more useful with longer effects and it would force you to be more prepared for battles.

yeah two that i posted by accident. haha next time look at the person posting.

well then healing potions would be completely useless though

I was just messing with you, I knew.

Thats why I hinted I was joking with the smiley icon with the tongue sticking out.

Naaaah. I could care less about how much detail they give to these sorts of things: as far as animations go I just want the underlying motions for movement, combat and speaking gestures to be more varied.

Now, wouldn't it be nice if NPCs in Skyrim could actually eat their food using those forks we see all over the place?

oh haha sorry. i just felt like an idiot for posting three.
funny though. now i'm laughing :thumbsup:

I certainly hope so! I love the extra mile first person stuff. Drag bodies in first person, see yourself when you look down, etc.

Oh, and modding animations is really hard.

I agree with this statement. To say that the eating/drinking animation would affect battle scenarios is correct, but not for the worse. It always seemed a bit odd to me that you could pause the game in the middle of combat and consume items. I would think it great to try and drink a potion in the middle of a fight, only to have the bottle knocked right out of my hands. Some would say this is too realistic and might take the playability out of combat. I say it is more realistic for sure, but proper implementation could make it so terribly awesome!

I say no to this part. It just seems too big an inconvenience to be fully prepared for every battle you go into. I don't even know why you'd want to consume food during a battle considering its only useful effect is Restore Fatigue, one of the most unneeded things during all of my Oblivion playthroughs. Perhaps for a hardcoe mode when applied to potions, but not normally. In fact, I think I can dismiss that notion due to Todd Howard's earlier comment about how mages, regrettably, will rely on potions during battles. And soulgems. But we don't talk about those

OH and you guys are, essentially correct in saying it would make combat more interesting. Timing is one of the biggest aspects that can affect a game's fighting system. Making consuming items take time is actually a great idea, it makes it an interesting decision instead of just another thing you're spending gold on or something. As Sid Meir said "good gameplay comes from making interesting decisions"

First of all, you have no idea what alchemical ingredients will be in the game, or at least all of their affects. So to say that food only restores fatigue is incorrect. I agree that "food" in Oblivion was on the lame side in that the first effect (the one implemented when eaten versus used in a potion) was "restore fatigue" 9 times out of 10, but then again I saw every consumable more as alchemical ingredients than actual food. Since cooking will be in Skyrim, in can be inferred that cooking and alchemy are going to be either different skill sets, or cooking will not be governed by any skill. Not sure on that yet due to lack of information.

Back to the thread now. I can't really see eating a piece of chicken in the middle of battle as being practical or realistic, but potion consumption is a different story. We will have to wait and see I guess.

yeah i agree with you on that. in order for chicken eating to make sense in battle is if they make the effects just as little as in oblivion. that way if you do eat chicken in the middle of battle you are an idiot. so its discouraged.

Well that was just my point. You never actually eat the food. It restores a small amount of fatigue, and that is overall useless. Food is better as an alchemy ingredient than a consumable. I also don't see this changing anytime soon. Food had the same primary effect in Morrowind, and I really don't see any logical alternative effect it could provide. I've certainly never eaten the crazy carrot of curing or the magical muffin of mana.

I simply believe that there is no reason to force players to eat food outside of combat when it's really never used during combat anyways.

A consumption animation would actually be a decent balancing mechanic. Think of it, how does one drink tons of potions all at once when you have to play an animation that lasts a good second for drinking potions? The answer is that one does not, because it will put you at a grave disadvantage.

Having to spend time consuming potions would give us a viable reason to wear beer hats into battle. :biggrin:

But, honestly, I would like for this to apply, if only while idle. Because, really, what NPC is going to be eating during battle? That's player-exclusive, they can do it whenever the hell they want. NPCs always sit while eating/drinking in Oblivion, and I don't see why that should change. Also, Bethesda could stand to fix the system a little bit. I've pickpocketed a person while they ate, and they had no food in their inventory. Sure, there was a plate in front of them, but nothing on it moved or disappeared. So I think that eating should also require food to be present and participating. That way I can actually poison them with the potion I spent 10 minutes making in the CS.