Hey all. ^_^

So I was/am listening to lots of music on YouTube at the moment, Two Steps to Hell, Immediate Music and so on. As is often the case while listening to such music, my imagination runs wild. We know one of the Dragon shouts is to slow time, yes? The idea popped into my mind that it could be used for some very interesting and creative "set pieces".

Imagine if you will a battle with a Dragon, you are currently trying to climb a sheer cliff face to reach the top when down comes to dragon wanting a snack. Obviously you're in a very tough position, little to no movement room and so on. Dragon is more or less hovering a bit away from the cliff readying to turn you into a barbecue. What to do? Imagine if we had destructable enviroments (at least at certain areas anyway), so we use the 'force push' dragonshout to shatter the rocks all around us, causing them to break away and tumble outward from the cliff wall (or the dragon attacks with its claws and the same result).

Use the slow time dragonshout then so, which for whatever reason I don't think will affect dragons, now we have two nomal speed moving beings and a collection of rocks and boulders falling away from the wall in slow mo. I know this part might sound rather Anime-esque, its just an example though and I'm sure if people wished they could think of more realistic/grounded things. Anyhoo, slow mo rocks which our character can then leap across to close the gap between him/herself and the dragon, thus launching at said dragon and hopefully being able to kill or wound it.

Mind you, getting back onto the cliff wall without plummeting to your death after killing the dragon might be a problem but... sssh! ^_^

What do you all think? Enviroments being used in such a way to create "organic" or natural platforms with which to cross, rather than silly things like "oh... those platforms are moving too fast for me safely jump onto... whatever will I do???" And other uses I'm sure, my imagination has vanished once I set my mind to typing this out though so, anybody have other crazy ideas like that? :lightbulb:

*Prepares flame-resistant armour and spells just in case, also yay for my first topic* ^_^

I'm assuming that the time slowing thing is only for a few seconds, so it would probably be more like having some object moving quickly at you (dragon or not.) and using the slow time shout to have enough time to get out of the way, or something, though it could just be something like your typical bullet time where it slows the player as well, thus mainly being a feature that gives players more time to think and an easier time reacting to things rather than actually letting you move about normally while your surroundings move in slow motion.

Even so, I could see dragonshouts being used for some creative set pieces, as you call them, maybe not the particular scenario given, but I can't think of any others right now, it would seem to make sense, if you think about it, after all, when you create some sort of unique ability only available to the main character, or at least a select few characters in the story, you'd probably want to create scenariors where the character must use it to succeed, it helps to justify why it has to be THAT character saving the world instead of someone else, for one thing. And in RPGs, one needs to be a bit careful about this sort of thing as with the exception of quests that are meant to be limited to specific character types, you generally want to ensure all characters can complete the game. But it seems like dragonshouts are available to all player characters, so I see no reason why we can't have situations where it's necessary to use them.

I think we'll see some form or another of destrucive enviroments. Unless chopping a tree down won't be shown in real time, which I would not be happy with. I can picture catching a dragon in the sky off guard with a force push/yell causing it to crash down into a forest, taking down trees along with it. Really cool.

I think the time slow will effect dragons as well as us though, unless they know the same magic word. Actually, it really depends on how time slowing is handled. Would the user slow time around them, or slow down time in general, cause slowing down time just around us would make us look super fast to the npcs. And, how would ai handle slowing time, if the dragon could still move at normal speed, to us it would look like it would suddenly move super fast, which could be extreaming intimidating.

If time slows down all time in general, it would slow the user down with the world around them, just giving the player back home a sense of being able to think really fast. You'd be able to time things better, but to the npc's it wouldn't look like anything happened. I however really like the idea of slow-motion jumping off a mountain onto a dragons' back and slicing it a lot as we both go crashing down towards the ground. That, would be pretty intence.

The different dragon souls leads me to beieve that different dragons will have different abilitys, and there may be only some dragons that can breath fire, while others can slow time. Don't quote me on any of this though, I don't really know for sure.

More than likely, yes. We do know there is different levels of shouts though, depending upon how long you 'charge' it (the more words the character says). So while the first level might only be for, say, two seconds I imagine the highest level would at least give us enough time to accomplish something significant enough to warrant using a slow time power.

I'd doubt that to be honest. My understanding is that Dragon shouts is literally just speaking the dragons language, which contains power. So to have a slow time power would be very out of place if it were merely a bullet time/everything slows down sort of deal. Wouldn't be much point in it. Given its the dragons language, I think its fair to assume that at least some of them will be using these powers against us so how would that work, were it bullet time? :S

Oh yes, absolutely! ^_^ It always bugs me in games where you are the "only one" who can save the world or whatever and yet... you're just a normal warrior like John and Jane Doe back there in the tavern. I fully expect that some bosses in the game will be extraordinarily difficult without the use of the shouts, potentially to the point of being impossible unless you vastly outlevel the enemy.


I was under the impression that the souls only served to further allow us to learn the language, not neccesarily gain a dragon shout via the soul. I see it as the dragon language is basically the language of creation. You speak of wind and you get a force push, etc. So, to me anyway, it makes sense that the souls actually have our character become far more than "human" (or insert whatever player race one chooses :3) and thus our ability to comprehend and utilize the language increases. As to dragons have different powers, probably. Lesser/greater dragons perhaps? Or their age determines what access they have to their language.

I wish we had more info on the different types of shouts available, would make my efforts of thinking of creative uses for them so much easier heh. ^_^

ResistanceKnight, on 04 February 2011 - 03:05 PM, said:
The different dragon souls leads me to beieve that different dragons will have different abilitys, and there may be only some dragons that can breath fire, while others can slow time. Don't quote me on any of this though, I don't really know for sure.

Serella! He said don't quote me on that!! Oh! now you've got me doing it too!

bliviongate:

Hehe, don't quote me on mine either then, as I'm just speculating too. ^_^

Meh.

Scripted events in open world games annoy me because I can always (usually) think of a smarter way to escape from the situation. Take the situation you described with the cliff dragon: If you let go of the cliff face, allowing yourself to fall, then cast slowfall to not die, you'd be in a pretty good position. You might take some damage, but it would let you escape quickly from the dragon, and get your bearings (or hide if you think you can't slay it).

As for using the environment to your advantage: my answer is always yes. Especially if there is magic at play. Think of throwing a canister of oil on the ground and lighting it on fire to deter or harm enemies. This would let you shepherd them into one kill point (ie: go between two adjacent trees, light fire on one side, enemies attack you only from the opposite side because they don't want to burn, you avoid getting flanked, you slay them).