Hey guys, I read an article about Skyrim a few days ago (sorry no link: read it on here though) talking about Dragon encounters.


It said the already known, that they'll be random, attack towns, ect...

But what it also said was that you could run inside a building or house to evade them. My guess would be the author meant this would be one of the means for escaping a Dragon attacking a town.

Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but I thought cities and homes were using cells? :confused:
Does that really mean that if I jump inside a small wooden hut (i.e. some hobo's house) that I can escape an attacking Dragon? I can escape a giant fire breathing Dragon, by going inside a small hut made of wood a straw.

Am I the only one that see's a problem with this?

How long do I have to wait before I go back outside? Do I just chill in there with NPC's that are probably going to act totally oblivious to the mayhem going on outside, wait 5 minutes, then go back out and everything is okay?

:huh:

Well I'm highly skeptical to say the least. :glare:

I'll shove the hobo out of the hut, then leave after 30 minutes.

I believe during the demo Todd encountered a dragon and ran into a Temple where it couldn't go. I'm not sure but it may have been the one still waiting when he came out. He *did* have to fight one when he left...not sure if it was from the Temple.

:tes:

well I think you can escape it for the time being, maybe enough to use a few heal spells but by the time you leave, the dragon will probably still be there.

Now that I think about it that does sound weird. Most of the previews I read did say that Todd ran into Bleak Falls before the dragon attacked him. I wonder how it will work for small houses/buildings like you said.

those huts are invincible. They don't make them how they used to.

It does sound a little silly, but how else could they do it? Are you saying you want to fight off every single dragon that attacks you?

Sounds about right. But if you think about it, theres really no way to solve this problem (though i dont think it was such a wise point to make as a dragon-escaping method). Destructable environments would help, but thats some far off tech. Secondly, even if we did have destructable environments, there would have to be some radiant environment rebuilding system where the town rebuilds. But towns have to serve as an are to recieve quests and fulfill missions, and would be very much of a pain if a dragon ended up burning it to smitherenes. :flamethrower:

Cities are open, no separate cells. Homes, I imagine, are still using cells.

I don't see why "small wooden hut" is the first place your mind goes to. I imagine an actual sturdy building. Hide out in there until it goes away.

I don't see any problem with the logic in it.

Is he still a hobo if he has a regular home?

I don't want to have to fight off every single Dragon, but I would like to actually have to use common sense and at least come up with a plausible solution to evade one.

Hey let's all escape the Dragon by covering our eyes with our hands!

It's fool proof!

:banghead:

Well, I can't speak with any authority here, but if it works anything like Oblivion then going into a building would likely save you from the dragon, yes. Sometimes mobs and NPC's (especially) would follow you from outdoor to indoor environments if you were aggro to them, but I'm thinking they will not allow a dragon to enter a structure that physically couldn't contain its body. Therefore, going into a house would effectively take you out of the encounter, at least for the moment. How long you have to stay there before the dragon loses interest, and what the dragon will do outside while you're hiding, is another matter.

As for the "unrealistic" nature of hiding in a straw hut to evade dragon fire, you'll likely just have to get over that one. There's only so much they can do, and I doubt that the composition of individual buildings will have any impact on how much they protect you from the outside environment. I also doubt that buildings will be destructible in any fashion. That said, if I'm wrong about any of that... woot.

With regards to the NPC reacting it would make sense that they lable each NPC in a town as a resident of that town, then the game could recognise somehow that a town is being attacked and script that every NPC labled at that town would have special Dragon Attack related dialogue.

That seems pretty simple to do, but may have a drain on the lag capabilities of some computers with extrat scripts running.

Castle maybe (though not if you've seen "Rain of Fire" :biggrin: ), but a hut?

You don't see a problem with that? :rolleyes:

Who's saying hut? You're the only one saying hut. It's the land of the Nords, even a hobo could build a nice igloo or build rocks up.

Even if it was a small wooden hut, use your imagination. The dragon attacks a few people, then gets bored and flies off. Dragons aren't going to demolish an entire city. It's entirely possible for a small wooden hut to go completely unscathed.

I think the problem is more with your ability to suspend your disbelief rather than the game mechanics themselves.

Again, this is one of those times when you have to agree to suspend disbelief. Though we're getting closer all the time, we unfortunately don't live in a world yet where we can design games that obey every aspect of physics that you would deem necessary to call it "realistic". Concessions must be made in order to arrive at a product that is fun, playable, and complete.

The point is that you could go into a small wooden hut to escape a dragon. Whether you would do it if dragons would exist in real life doesn't matter. It would feel a bit weird if you could do that (and I don't see how you could not do that). The dragon is charging you, you run towards a small hut, loading screen, you are saved. Doh.

And if the interiors are separated from the exterior like in Oblivion (which they are) the question is whether NPCs inside of buildings will react properly if there is a dragon outside. Will they cower in fear or will they keep drinking their beer?

I actually see a lot of problems with dragons. Obviously you can encounter them right from the start. Either the player has to run away from dragons till he reaches level 30 or he will constantly meet leveled dragons at low levels (like a 'Baby Dragon') so he has a chance to defeat them. I doubt that Bethesda wants the player to run away all the time for the first 50 hours of gameplay, on the other hand encountering only weak dragons that can be defeated by a level 2 character early in the game would be an immersion killer and make dragons a joke.

I think it would be awesome if they made each house have just a small amount of 'outside' in its cell-so that the door could realistically open and close, in real time.
This would fix the dragon issue by just making the dragon's head+neck force its way into the house and bite at you.

That would be awesome.

Create a game engine that can handle Skyrim's level of detail in the world, and then make it completely open. No separate cells or anything. Then design those homes to be able to burn and be ripped appart in a believable fashion, with the engine able to handle it all easily with no lag...

...and then we'll talk.

:shrug: Sure, it makes little sense that the first little piggys house of straw can stand up to a dragon just like the last piggys house of bricks...but where we stand with tech a fully open world with this level of detail and graphics just isn't going to happen. Remember how everyone got upset how stuff always went flying when you went into a room? Imagine if the walls, roof, and floors did the same thing.

I'm pitching dreams here, I know, but I'd love to see dragon attacks to cities occour like this:
-New dialog paths open up for all NPCs, so they acknowledge the dragons presence, and will not provide shop services (accept healing) or other dialoge options untill the dragon is gone, followed by a cooldown period of fear/paranoia.
-All civillians (accept maybe hunters/lumberjacks) run to their homes and lock the door behind them, partly solving the OPs problem. After all, these people are going to try and donas much as they can to save themselves.
-Guards, warriors (hunters ect..) will put up some form of fight, possibly scaring the dragon off or weakening it. Why is this dragon going to be after you in particular? You could run while the others ward it off. However, NPCs should never actually kill the dragons.
-Mages guilds (or their equivalents) should have some form of protection from dragon fires, so their doors remain open to provide sanctuary for anyone unlucky enough to be caught unaware by the dragon. Temples or Churches should have similar protection.
-And most importantly, the dragons should get bored and leave after a while. Getting into a fight with the entire city guard wouldn't be in the dragons best intrests would it. Maybe it just snatches up one or two guards, or even a couple of sheep or cattle grazing near the city.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm literally bursting with ideas. 'twould probably be a better idea to just create a thread for this post, wouldn't it...

it will depend on the building codes at the time. for instance a simple straw hut is usually built with a 4 hour fire rating. This means by the time the hut would burn completely down the dragon has gotten bored and left. the resident will also have plenty of time to put the fire out. remember only you can prevent hut fires by building to code.

here is an example of what happens when you dont build to code. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMzfrod7hcE&feature=related

Dragon's can't see trough those wooden huts, they're immune against dragon-vision, so you'll be invisible to them if you enter one.

But if you want to feel more "immersed" just go into the basemant, or hide under the bed.

I do see the issue OP, although it's more of technical limitations more so than anything else. When the player goes into a house or any structure, they will be separated into a different cell. Perhaps an alternative would be for all homes/shelters to lock their dorms during dragon invasions, causing the player to have to go to a more fortified location, or find a nice rock to hide under.

Think of it as getting out of it's line of site. If it can't see you, it's less likely to come after you than the unfortunate people still on the streets.

Yep. You don't have to outrun the dragon, just the nearest other edible creature.