Why not a compromise that wouldnt be too difficult I bet, simply have the PC reach for the handle/ladder-rung/cover and then cut. I agree that the cut to loading screen is a very quick transition, although in the end I appreciate it for its brevity. Id prefer no animation versus simply straight to loading screen personally. Again for its brevity. Opening doors is ok the first few times, but when you are opening doors in-game every 2-5 minutes (oblivion) then having to sit through a 3 second animation gets tiresome quickly. Additionally, I dont see what is really gained from having a full blown animation. There are a few unrealistic things we accept about games in general. A UI and loading screens is one of them. Witcher 2 did great, but Skyrim is an entirely different kind of game and is limited my the consoles. Having an animation before this thing called a loading screen doesnt make me forget im going into a new zone/cell. It just gets in the way.

Actually, this idea is great. Combine this with the possibility to see your own legs, and I'm a happy man.

I don't much like the idea of closing the door behind. Witcher 2 did this, and I found situations where Geralt opens a door, walks into an unknown room full of hostile guards, and cannot leave the room because he's automatically closed the door, and has to turn around to open it (and get stabbed in the back).

For those who play First person, the motions can be assumed [offscreen]. For NPCs it would be a nice touch I think.
For TPP players, I would not mind a separate open and a close option (or even a lock option ~Imagine even lockpicking the door to lock it without a key).

*But its not a prime concern with me, and I can easily live without it.

3 second animation is a gross exaggeration :tongue:

I wouldn't mind a reach-for-door animation. That could certainly work. It might be a bit less interesting than a doorway animation, but would communicate the point that you are doing something with the doorway while the screen is loading. It would connect the activation of the door with the opening and closing sounds that have been in previously very well. I'm not sure if it would help with NPC's though. They would still just reach out for the door and vanish, or materialize on one side of the door as before.

I wouldn't mind seeing it for NPC's at all. For my character though I think it would be faster just to fade through, so that's mainly the reason I prefer that method.

It would take too long, and would get boring.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, at least seeing the NPC reach and grab the door knob would help with immersion.

I assume some people here have played Far Cry 2. Of all the tedious aspects of that game was seeing your hand open a door really one of them? It takes one second to do. You reach out twist the knob, step into the next room, done. This takes no longer to open than doors do already, it just that you have a hand on the knob now.

Beyond that, this opens up the ability for a greater degree of player control for non-transitional doors. Do you want to swing the door wide open and barrel into the next room? Activate the door while running, your character swings it open and continues running. Want to peek inside? Activate while stationary and slowly press the door open, giving you a crack to peer through. Want to kick the door down? Activate the door and attack.

There's more to door interaction than just switching over to a new cell.

Yeah, that's reasonable if they couldn't make a very good first-person view of a door animation.

Yeah, I'm a fan of further interaction on door opening. I can see that some people don't want it, but room for it in future versions would be nice, assuming they take the first step in Skyrim and show some actual interaction between PC or NPCs and the doorways.
Further interaction would probably be better suited for an open-cell world, but interaction would be a good start for immersion this time around.

Sounds annoying to me.

It never bugged me and never will. People on these forums are being so picky and realistic that they are going to be really disappointed when it comes to release, sadly.

Actually, I'm 100% positive that I'll be happy with the game upon release, but the purpose of these forums is to present suggestions and to talk about things that we'd like to see implemented in the game. I'm not being nitpicky here, I legitimately think that this would be an awesome feature to appear in game in some form or another, but I won't be dissapointed if it isn't in there...

I think NPCs should use real doors, but the player and any NPCs following or being escorted by the player should use the current instant transition.

Far Cry 2 did this quite well.

It would be ideal, yeah, but there is plenty of interactive doors within a single cell to easily make the payoff worth it. Dungeons, castles, prisons, etc could all be enhanced with a little more tactile interactivity.

True, I'd like to see it implemented
I doubt it this time around, if only because it hasn't been shown off yet, or perhaps because it would take a lot more development time to implement a game-play mechanic that would be meaningfully different depending on how you use the door (and not available on some doors as separate cells are still in this time around).

I liked the way it was done in The Witcher 2, if you havent played that game go watch a walkthrough and you'll see what I mean.

I like the idea, and for one huge reason that I don't think anyone has mentioned. Loading is a must. Going from cell to cell; you have to load period. Do you need a loading screen though? No. Many companies have implemented their loading into their animations. The loading screen is the animation, and I would rather see my character opening and closing a door than a bar that fills up.

Nice idea but I doubt they would do anything about it. Wonder if the mod community might be interested in that?

Yeah, replacing a loading bar entirely would be ideal. I would like to see this happen in future installments at the least, but like I said before in this thread, just implementing some sort of interaction with doors now would set the stage for more substantial changes in the future... Otherwise we'll end up with the same thing next time and the same people arguing "I've never missed it before, and I don't need it now" when ES:VI begins development.

This might look cool the first few times but after 500 doors you'll be gouging your eyes out.

I allways like the seamless transition. In a time were more and more games are forcing "immerison" via short and repetive cut scenes. Its a forced way for devolpers to say "Hey gamer look at these pretty graphics! We spent 2 months on this nice feature...oh and by the way we cut out some stuff." I know what you want, but on our generation of consoles, we would lose some content for a tiny thing most people dident give a [censored] about.

Keep in mind that you don't get tired of things that you expect to happen. If you walk up to a doorway you expect to open it before entering, so it wouldn't be that boring to do it every time as it would be natural to open the door. You can only become tired of actions that are unnecessary that you have learned to expect, like some sort of war-cry before every battle or perhaps a finisher animation? after every kill...