I thought the whole reason we had two hands to shoot spells was so we can combine them. But according to the dutch magazine interview thats not neccesarily true

What can we expect?

Yeah this is pretty confusing. One of the new features was to combine spells right.. now they're saying we cant?

I'm very confsued by this aswell what good is the dualwielding system for magic if we cant do this?

The GI article says you can equip two spells at a time. Which I took to mean, not combining them like Fable 3, but easier access. So for instances, a weakness to fire spell in one hand and a fire spell in the other, to eliminate the amount of switching you have do do. Or perhaps, heal in one hand and frost in the other so that you can lay down some fire while healing yourself if you are taking a lot of constant damage.

They also said combining spells would create interesting effects?

I don't think the effects will combine, exactly. More likely they'll stack like they did in Oblivion, but we'll be able to have more than one "equipped" at a time for faster use.

So say you have a fire spell and an ice spell equipped. You cast the ice spell, freezing the enemy, and then cast the fire spell doing damage. Instead of the ice melting from the fire spell, the damage from the fire will just stack on top of the freezing effect. That's my interpretation, anyway.

Well it didnt seem like that to me

I thought we wer gonna be able to freeze any enemy and then shatter them with lightnning

That's what I thought at first, but http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1161738-dutch-cover-story-interesting-info-2/ thread changed my mind. Unless, of course, someone misunderstood something along the way.

The article said combining fire with frost (the only example given) was too complex because of the secondary effects spells now have. Fire continues to burn, not just on the enemy, but also on the ground, doing continual damage. Frost causing enemies to slow down. The article said Todd Howard said it would be too complex to fire both at the same time. (It didn't seem to specify in what way. Performance-wise? Gameplay-wise? Too overpowered?)

So if that's true of all spells, then I would have to assume that the only three possibilities are 1) No spell combining in spell creation, 2) when creating spells we can select which of the spells' secondary effects will happen, or 3) there will simply be no custom spell creation in Skyrim.

only option 2 is acceptable.. I mean no combining is terrible and takes most of teh fun out of spellmaking, no spell making would be one degree worse than that

Well,I couldn't believe it back than actually.I could see this coming =D
Shooting two spells at the same time was pretty much possible and I think that's still in,but combining them to get one new unique...Too many variables for 85 effects.

Well,it's not unusual for promises to fall in the process.It's not something unique to Bethesda...

I guess so, we still have spellmaking (I hope..) so its not all that bad. Easier to cast "Weakness to X" then "X" now at least!

I thought it would be like holding fire spell in the left hand and a frost or heal or any other spell in the right hand.

Like this.

Left fire, heal right

Paralyze left, Shock touch right.

Well you know etc...

Any combination is possible!

I can still think of creative ways to combine spells. Cast fire on the ground between you and an enemy and when they are about to run through it cast frost on them to slow them as they run through. hehehehe...

Well, when i read the gameinformer article that is how I understood it, I don't really see why Bethesda would let us use both hands for spells if combining magic was not an option, that's kind of a no brainer from a design standpoint. It's rather simple to implement as well, combining frost and fire can just do frost and fire damage, it doesn't really need to be more fancy than that. It can be though.

I'm going to try to come up the best possibly way to kill someone with magic:

In your left hand is a frost spell, while your right hand burns with magical fire. The bandit charges at you, only to be frozen solid by your icy blast. Just as the life fades from his frozen eyes, you unleash an inferno from your other hand, causing the hapless bandit to melt away. All that remains is a puddle.

Yeah, i think I nailed it.

No, it said combine them for devastating effect. Well, if I shoot two damage spells at once, it will be devastating, with or without combinational effects.

I am still very happy with this ability, and I never thought they'd let us combine them anyways. What I see is using a defensive and offensive spell to great effect. Mage's can actually have quick combat like other classes got in Oblivion. No more slinging one spell, menu -> different spell, cast, menu -> previous spell, etc.

Eeeeh??

Yes that is my feeling as well. I think that they just mean that we can not cast the 2 together but could cast one after the other, the 2 hands aspect is mainly for easier swiching, allowing a mage to use multiple spells faster.

It wouldn't make much sense if you could combine fire and frost anyway

I believe they'll let you first equip one hand with a spell, and then if you want to equip the other with a spell as well, only the spells that work good with the first spell will be available. Like fire + weakness to fire like someone stated. It'd be cool and I wouldn't be surprised if you could combine spells like frost + lightning, which would make sense.

One-Two Punch:
Left hand: 100% Weakness to Magic for one second on touch.
Right hand: Any mexed level Destruction spell for one second on touch.

Hit the enemy with the Weakness spell, and then the Destruction spell immediately after. This is better than simply using double Destruction spells, because Weakness is much cheaper to cast!

ice with fire just does not make sense (as far as magic goes)

I prefer combining the same spell for some added crazy effect (fire ball + fire ball = pyro blast, lighting blast + lighting blast = channeled beam lightning ...etc)

since spells HAVE effects now (ice freezes, fire burns) combining them might just be too OP

ive said this aaall along. everybody want to believe you could combine. in the GI article it only says you can combine two similar spells for stronger effect. atleast thats how i understood it.
btw really happy about the additional effects (slow for frost, damage over time with fire).

I think they removed custom spell making. Based on the GI article, they said there were like 80 spells someone could learn, they wouldn't be able to give a number if there was spell making in the game.

Most likely they meant spell effects. Not having spell making would be ruinous. Forum magic users (such as myself) would rage with the fury of a thousand suns.

That was spell effects like Fire Damage and whatnot. We should still be able to craft our own spells.