dragons are definitely a good thing. they had a seperate team just for dragons so everyone else could work on the other things. Its about time they incorporated dragons into the game and i hardly feel like it will take much away. i dont want the climbing system everyone is talking about. if u get a system like that ur going to get a game where when ur climbing ur character kind of goes into a "climing mode" and i really dont want that. one thing i love about tes games is u do everything freely. alot of other games like assassinas creed when ur climbing ur in "climbing mode" which means u cant do anything else. or when u fight ur in "fighting mode" which makes it hard to run away. tes is very free.

You are so fixated on your question that you didnt read when I wrote I NEVER SAID THEY SHOULD NOT BE IN THE GAME... Please re-read my post...

Dragons..... are......awesome!

Lore less? Uriel Septim and his son Martin both possessed dragons blood, which allowed them to control the Dragonfires. So where did it come from if dragons aren't part of the Elder Scrolls lore?

Geez people, what part of "dragons are the story" don't you understand? Not working on them would be like Bethesda not putting any resources into the Oblivion planes, or the Daedra. They are the central element of the main story and to not work on them would mean not working on the game at all. There wouldn't be a game at all without them, or it would be one that was so lame all you would do is wander aimlessly through the countryside.

You cant force something that is not there, if I never said they should scrap dragons then I never said it. You are basically arguing just to argue. So what I want you and everyone else that agrees with you to understand is if Bethesda makes great improvements from Oblivon to Skyrim while including dragons I'm still going to be a happy man. EVEN if some of my ideas or hopes dont make it to the game. When I was watching the VGA's and saw the trailer and saw that it will be dragons I got goosebumps and was so excited I wanted to call other gamers I knew and tell them. The Line you are referring to meant that what if someones idea for a feature is not included, which would ADVANCE the series as a whole, because of the amount of time put into the game for dragons. I said that to stimulate other peoples minds so hopefully they will understand me initially so I dont have to make a post like this.

I was taking a realistic approach to the situation that arised(all of the details on skyrim). My main thing was that I HOPE that Bethesda does not sacrifice key things like some needed story or gameplay improvements to squeeze in dragons, not that dragons should be taken out.

This.


This.

And this.

It'll be nice to face some really large enemies I think.

I know that. That wasn't my point. I said in that post that I didn't think they were unnecessary. My point was that Dragonborn1 was arguing against the statement "They could spend their time on something else instead" (take it out of context, doesn't have to be dragons) with "A seperate team is working on it, so that is not true.". What I was saying was that time and manpower spent on one thing COULD be spent on something else redardless of whether or not it was divided into a seperate team. It doesn't change the facts. I was not arguing that we don't need dragons at all.

I respectively disagree

Umm what? Dragons are the main focus of the game, they couldn't be using too much of the time, not to mention that they had a dedicated team to dragons, not the entire dev team doing them. At the same time they were making dragons, they were working on quests, models for other NPCs and so on.

Also, if anyone says that dragons are bad because they are generic fantasy creatures they decided to add in now just to grab in the kiddies, no because we have had dragonlings before, a dragon was in Redguard and now the dragons are back for this one game. TES has actually only had one real dragon in it in 17 years and they have been in the lore but they haven't been around. TES dragons are unique and they aren't slapped in just because dragons are cool like other fantasies do. They are here for a reason and they have returned and they are here with a vengeance.

Don't you mean 'respectfully'?

a valid point. I'm still not seeing how they can hurt the gameplay standpoint, seeing as though being able to fight dragons is pretty much an incredible addition to gameplay. The only game that got even remotely close to having it be cool when you are fighting dragons was Dragon Age. and that is a stretch.

Its not ncessaraly true. Now that they knew how to do dragons, we could run into them again in future games. We many lose out a little now, and that is a very small amount of time and manpower lost, but we'll make up for it easily in the long run. Dragons are an epic investment.

Also, I think Fallout 3 lost out more than Skyrim did. They were making the dragons while the others were working on Fallout right?

nope respectively B)

You're right OP. In Oblivion they shouldn't have put so much time into Oblivion gates and in Morrowind they shouldn't have put so much time into the Sixth House questlines and the Red Mountain

/sarcasm

People fail to realize that Bethesda has 100 people on their team. Different groups of people are tasked with doing different types of things. Animators are not going to be developing JUST a dragon. Programmers are not going to just be working on a dragon. World artists are not going to work on dragons. Audio & SFX teams are not going to just be stuck with dragons. This goes right back to the graphics vs. gameplay debates. Everyone doesn't work on everything all at once. Doing one thing does not hinder the progress of another. That's why there's scheduling and planning. And teams.

/thread

How can they be simply squeezing in dragons when the whole game is based on them? You keep going around and around in circles and completely fail to see the point. Here I'll post it again, maybe you'll actually read it this time. From the Bethesda web site:



The story is all about dragons, they can't possibly devote too much time and energy on the central focus of the main storyline. Frankly I hope they put alot more effort into the dragons than they did with the Oblivion planes and the Daedra. I thought overall both were rather lame.

The whole main plot to the Skyrim story is about dragons. The lore about Skyrim is about Dragons.
If they didn't have dragons, it would be like not having oblivion gates in Oblivion.
As for the gameplay of the dragons, I don't believe it would hurt the gameplay in any way, not only because it's awsome to have some giant mythic monster mashing you like a potato and burning you to cinders, but because, as i've said, the story is about "Dragons". Would not having oblivion gates in Oblivion hurt the gameplay of that game? My answer: Yes, indeed it would.

No, they didn't start working on Skyrim until after Fallout 3 was completed.

Its what they wana do its what they wanted to do for a long time. So.... pthththththt!!!!!!!!!!! Devs get to have fun too you know.

And what makes you think that if Bethesda had chosen not to do dragons, thus completely changing the premise of the game, we would suddenly get those features? Or anything else that Skyrim currently most likely does not have but you might want? Saying "If they didn't do x, they could do y." is really not an argument that holds water because the absence of some feature does not automatically mean another feature will be in, we have absolutely no indication that Bethesda sacrificed climbing, or good AI, or anything else you might know for the sake of dragons. All arguments that say that one thing was sacrificed for the sake of another inevitably fall short because they're based on the assumption that it's actually because of one thing that another wasn't added, even if this notion has absolutely no basis beyond the posters' own assumptions. There are too many factors that could influence what does or doesn't make it into a game to blame any one feature on another ones' absence unless there's a clear connection between them or the developers actually stated that they didn't do one thing because they decided to do something else.

Besides, climbing is overrated if you ask me, I never really found Morrowind or Oblivion lacking because of it's absence, besides, if Bethesda just brought back levitation, it would entirely defeat the purpose of climbing, and probably be easier to do since levitation doesn't have to account for if there's a surface that one could feasibly climb on or not, meaning one less factor to program into the game. And if Bethesda had chosen to add climbing to Skyrim, I could very easily argue that it's taking up resources that could be spent on other things that I DO care about. So basically, your "dragons take up resources that could be spent on other things!" Argument could be easily applied to anything, I could also say that dual wielding takes up resources that could be spent on other things, or perks, or the changes to the magic system, or Radiant Story, or any other feature Skyrim adds, if you don't add something just because "It takes resources that could be used for other things." your game will end up having nothing in it. At some point, you have to decide this is what you want to do, and settle on it, even if it means something else you might also want to do can't make it into the game. It's just the way things are, yes, sometimes, you can't do everything, and sometimes, it's unfortunate that one thing has to be sacrificed for another, but that doesn't mean doing the latter was a bad thing, it's just a choice, and dragons is something Bethesda wanted to do, supposedly, they've wanted to do so for a while now, and if they felt now was a good time to do it, then why not?

In the end, dragons have always been an aspect of the Elder Scrolls, it's just that in most games, we don't see them, but it would seem to me to be quite a waste to never use dragons even though it's established that they exist in the setting.

It didn't take them that much resources, two years and a team of a few peeps to get dragons behave better than any creature in the game. Imo, every animal should behave like dragons, roaming around freely, living their lives, instead of popping up in front of you just because you need some combat.

I didn't read the entire thread, just a portion of it so I apologize if any of my points have been touched upon previously.

For starters, people are jumping all over you and your "assumptions" because of the thread title. You didn't make an open proposal, you made a bold claim, that's failure number one. People react to thread titles first and content later. I'm actually kind of wondering if you didn't sensationalize it on purpose. Either way, based on the title alone, it seems you are in fact making a grand assumption.

Then we have your logic that if they spend too much time on dragons, other areas suffer: Firstly, this is a matter of opinion. I don't care about climbing, having 400 totally unique, special dungeons, etc. Whereas you care about such things, likely moreso than you do dragons, thus you believe these areas will suffer. Others might be wanting to play this JUST to fight dragons because very few games use them these days, and fewer still do them well. They would take the stance that making a key story element and not putting enough effort into it is hurting the game.

For all you know they are just highlighting the dragons currently in news articles and the like simply because it's the main part of the game. It's all about Alduin, the Dragonborn, and dragons. The extra stuff is, well, extra. They may have such systems, or they may not be able to implement such systems well even if they had the resources and time. Engines do have their own specific limits. So even thinking that something to add more depth, immersion, flavor, and roleplaying elements isn't making it in because of the main story elements as opposed to technological limitations is a poor start to begin with. The size, scope, and passion going into this game should be enough to tell you that if they can do something well, they'll add it simply to make the game even better, the reason they don't is less about time and resources, and more about engine limitations. Just some food for thought.

And like I said before, if it isn't dragons, it'll be another primary story element and its support, effects, and ties. If they don't have a main story element, with a few major selling points, it's unlikely the game would sell well to begin with. Part of enjoying RPG games is enjoying the story. The plot, in essence, backed up by the lore, is the foundation upon which great games are made. Do you think WoW has 12 million subscribers because of the gameplay? Maybe, but it started because people loved the Warcraft lore. I played WoW because I wanted to immerse myself into the Warcraft world, live the story, and ultimately write my own. Dragon Age 2 was a letdown in many ways, including the story being rather insignificant in scope, but it was told well, and ultimately made the game enjoyable for many people, including me. Blizzard does well because of the rich story behind each of their games combined with good or excellent gameplay. The point is: A game is nothing without a story.

So to summarize: Thread title is sensationalized making people jump your [censored] over perceived assumptions and a grandiose claim. Your logic is flawed from the getgo because anyone could argue that spending time on X removes time spent on Y and thus makes the game less enjoyable for them. And finally, you need a good story, with plenty of characters, a primary antagonist, and supporting features to make a good RPG, or just about any other type of game.

Todd disagree's. They started Skyrim right after Oblivion. He's said that many times all ready. Most of the team worked on Fallout, but not everyone. I dont' really know when the dragons were made though, but its possible they broke the small team out of the Fallout team to work on dragons to get that done with. :shrug: