Read http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-varieties-faith-empire, http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-five-songs-old-knocker, and http://www.imperial-library.info/content/fight-one-eating-birth-dagon for more about Alduin.

Avatar was oooooh so different and you know it. If anything, you would be one of the blue people joining with the humans if we're trying to draw similarities here.

I would like some way to stop alduin from destroying the world without making the dragons go extinct, not sure if it's possible, and even if it's not I will have fun slaying dragons, it just would be nice to have the option.

ex. for example, say all the dragons have to be killed, because alduin has affected them in some way, but you have to choose whether or not to destroy a clutch of dragon eggs, which are not affected. Would be an interesting moral dilemma.

Ah, but that assumes that the dragons actually reproduce in the first place...or that they even want to be saved. From what I have gathered, Alduin is essentially "god", and the dragons we fight are his "angels" who carry out his will. I imagine they are likely single-minded, almost fanatical in their devotion to their creator Alduin. I mean seriously, trying to convince the dragons that Alduin is wrong? Why would they have any reason to listen to the words of creatures who are so much less than they are?

It's the food chain ! The strongest will survive!

This

I'd hope there's a bit more to the dragons than what we currently know. We know some dragons will be our enemy. We know some dragons will not be our direct enemy (Todd has said that some dragons you have to go out of your way to antagonize into a battle). We know that the Nords used to worship dragons (not Alduin, but dragons). We know the dragons will be speaking English Tamrielic, which hopefully means there'll be proper conversation and depth of character. We know that the number of dragons will be effectively limitless. We know that Tiber Septim, the last most well-known dragonborn, used dragons in his conquest of Tamriel (one of whom was in the game Redguard, revealed himself to be the Mercenary sort, and was actually quite courteous... before trying to kill you because you needed what he was ordered to guard), so it's apparent that being dragonborn does not inherently make you a slayer of all dragons.

There's almost assuredly more to them than simply being tough enemies. And even if the "worst" came to be (that there are no friendly dragons in the game), I highly doubt we'll be committing Dragon genocide any more than we commit Dremora genocide in Oblivion. That even if we kill all that cross our path, there'll still be plenty more in existence. I may be just reading too much into it, but it seems with the way Todd talks about it, dragons are something they've wanted to introduce before but just couldn't pull it off properly... I get the impression that they may become a mainstay of the series if they go over well, similar to how Dremora have stayed throughout the series. That's pure speculation on my part, though.

My advice would be to wait until we get more information about the dragons, and their role(s) in the story. If it concerns you that much, plan to get the PC version (and the necessary PC upgrades if needed; there's still 6 months before release) so you can get mods to handle issues like this. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if some secrets about dragons aren't revealed until people actually play the game and find them, and they won't be all "Rawr, eat humans!".

I'm wondering if the dragons in Skyrim are going to be like the bosses in Demon's Souls, in that you'll have to kill them in order to progress in the game. I kind of hope that's not the case, I'd prefer to be able to choose whether or not to kill the dragons. Otherwise the necessity to kill them almost becomes the entire point of the game, and I'd prefer Skyrim to have more freedom than that.

I think inevitably clashing with the more villainous dragons should be an obvious aspect of the game, however I do think I'll be quite disappointed if the dragons are nothing more than one dimensional bad guys to be exterminated.

There should be a few dragons that are either neutral or outright sympathetic to your cause in my opinion. I know some like the one dimensional bad guy approach and they have a right to that opinion, but that's just cliché and boring to me. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading Redwall when I was younger. All the races were so stereotyped and shoehorned that you almost always knew how the characters would act based only on their race. It's a world view I dislike quite a bit.

I don't mind us having to fight many dragons however. The fact is the plot has dragons as villains, and we're going to have to at the least defend ourselves and if we want to do the main story we're going to have to fight the dragons at what they are doing. I accept and embrace that. What I do not want to see is ALL the dragons being one dimensional bad guys. Just because the villains are dragons does not mean all dragons should be villains!

The Sons of Skyrim are spilling their own blood. World is crazy, and dragons want to bring... "peace" to it. Through fire. They have a sttrong reason, they are servants of the God of Time, that must finish the scattered world to start a new one.

If you say it like that, it sounds better, doesn't it?

Oh, and one more think: please, don't compare how we, humans, are so stupid to drive species to extinction to the case of Skyrim, where you have to fight dragons, that are not normals animals but some kind of demigods, to save Tamriel and everyone who lives there. Anyway, I wouldn't say dragons are evil. They are a menace, and of course they are seen as evil by the player (as Camoran was, while he thought he was doing the right thing) but they are just doing what they have to do: destroying the world to let a new one start. It's their nature.

The dragons were already there before the civil war. Unless the dragons have a collective consciousness in lore a plot that puts them *all* in league with each other would annoy me on some level.

I'm not saying I wouldn't like the game due to that. I'm actually ridiculously hyped and have been since the announcement. I'm just saying I don't like one dimensional "every member of this race is an enemy" story design.

Alduin is "god". The dragons we fight are his "angels", that's mostly all there is to it.

I can't help but see the 'god' and 'angels' thing as an excuse by bethesda to kill the dragons... again.
Sometimes its just better that the dragons exist, but you know little about them... so it is flexible.

We often kill humans or humanoids in video games without asking questions, or trolls, or ogres, dragons are on that list too. PLUS we had been TOLD that some speak english, and I assume that some will be friendly. Plus, in oblivion the person who saved the world WAS A FREAKING DRAGON at the end lol

Dragons were in TES lore before this Alduin thing and in a context not exclusively linked to Alduin so I don't see the point of that unless Bethesda outright confirmed it.

As far as we know the full role various dragons fill in the story isn't known. I'm hoping they aren't one dimensional considering the lengths Bethesda went to with the voicing and the made up dragon script and such, but we'll see.

It's not uncommon for someone to put on a friendly face while biding your time. Who is to say that this wasn't their purpose from the beginning, that they were just waiting for the time to be right for them to throw off their "masks" and drop the charade?

I don't doubt for a moment that we will deal with some of them on a more personal level, our enemy after all needs a face other than Alduin who may be untouchable until the end of the storyline.

Maybe there would be some who are sympathetic to us, but not in the way we humans are towards each other, so much as sympathetic in the way a human might occasionally be towards an ant they accidentally crushed.

I expect the majority of the dragons we meet to be fanatical, and completely unyielding to any pleas for compromise or the fantasy of "a mutually beneficial resolution". With their god preparing to possibly manifest on or around our world, they likely have little reason to turn away from the "correct side".

People can stop telling me that there are some non-fanatical dragons and that the fanatical dragons will not change. But when you've killed them, don't spit on their corpses.

Dragons aren't like Little Sisters in Bioshock. Its not a choice whether you want to kill them, or not kill them (why would you not want to kill a dragon? So it can burn the rest of Skyrim to the ground?).

The dragon doesn't give a rats [censored] how you feel about it. It just wants to eat you (with ketchup).


I'm beginning to think that the dragons in TES aren't the Sentient, Knowledgeable, talking dragons of most RPG realms (with maybe the acception of Alduin) . They seem to be more vicious and less "lets just talk it out".

Hey, now that I think about it.... I don't want to kill bandits! Poor people! They are just just unlucky guys and gals that have to live like that in order to survive! Isn't that sad? Why should I kill bandits? If a have to kill people, I'M NOT BUYING THE GAME.

Ehem...

Unless they have some kind of hive mind I don't like that.

Edit:
I just read the other topic about the German PC Gamer confirming there are some friendly dragons. Even if it's 1% of the dragons in the game that's enough for me.

taking Nafaalilargus into account, dragons are apparently masters of their own individualistic minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqlAEeBbWa0&feature=player_profilepage#t=248s

I can certainly understand not wanting to drive the Dragons into Extinction. And so far as I can tell, the dragons are no more godawful bloodthristy and wicked than many of The Nords, The Ayleids, or Pelenial Whitestrake (he was REALLY bat guano crazy awful, and may have been the incarnation of Shor/Sheezzar).

All that said, we know that dragons respawn throught the game just like all other non human NPC types, so I wouldn't worry too much, and I am sure, if you manage a high skilled stealth or mage character, you will come to a point in which you can avoid confrontations with them altogether, if you so see fit.

Todd has already said the game will essentially allow players to veer completely off from the main quest, just as with Morrowind and Oblivion.

I'm starting to get annoyed at half the people who don't respect my opinion at all. For those of you who do, thank you, i'll probably buy the game now. For those who don't, shut up. You people were probably those who enjoyed killing bugs for no reason other than pleasure in primary school. Now you can't see past the mindless mentality of many video games of destroying a threat to humanity, which in the past has taught us that species were exterminated needlessly due to this reason. Now I'm sick of it and can't see past THAT mentality.

Mercy for dragons???

Just like in real life, some creatures deserve to die.

...wow, thats harsh. I mean I can see why you wouldn't want to have all dragons be bad and all, but this is a little ridiculous to me. Its a video game, and while I respect your point of view, I don't think you should be insulting the people who obviously dont feel the same connection to the dragon element of this game that you do. MANY people play video games and they kill Nazi's, demons, nameless evils, dragons, and what have you and don't question it because its a video game, its an escape from reality. Its not because they were "those who enjoyed killing bugs for no reason other than pleasure in primary school" and its insulting for you to say that.