I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned already (or maybe it has, and I just haven't seen it), but shouldn't you be able to light certain things on fire with fire spells? Or freeze things with frost spells? I don't think it was in any of the other games. At the very least, I think the snow should melt when you shoot a fire spell at it.

But that's just me. Whadda you guys think?

Bethesda doesn't build an engine that incorporates destruction on that scale. If you want open world and destroyables Just Cause 2 and Mercenaries would be more than happy to have you.

would be cool, but since they are gonna use cells I would think it would be limited.

Robborboy, be nice.

I could see it happening but that does not mean that it will happen. The most likley thing would be the fire spell melting the ice and snow but I don't know about starting a big fire. You light a tavern on fire in Just Cause 2 it doesnt matter, if you do it in Skyrim then you will want to go back to that tavern eventually. Not a good idea.

What do cells have anything to do with this?

This kind of stuff takes quite a bit of coding.

I like the idea of environmental damage, but I think it would be too difficult to do right.
If you can light stuff on fire what stops you from burning a small hut? One that has interior cells? That won't work.
Even if they did simple texture replacements rather than things actually burning I have a feeling it would require more reasources than they would want to sacrifice.
I'd like to see it, because I love features and it would be cool. But I don't think it will be there, and if it is it will likely take up too many reasources to be worth it.

Alone in the Dark (2008) was a pretty awful game, but had really good fire effects and it would spread naturally around rooms, across ceilings etc. You could even hold items like chairs over the fire to set them on fire to use as weapons or spread the fire elsewhere.

just cause 2 is barely destructible

bfbc2 is the kind of destruction i want. but i kno thats not possible

Be nice? It was typed matter of factly with no malice at all...

and stop being sarcastic

Well, dragons will be attacking towns and cities so I don't see why not. Obviously not everything will be destructible but some things, definitely.

And yes, I would like to catch a building on fire. But It should be slowly rebuilt over time, that would be nice. (Yes, I know this will most likely not happen)

Rather than attempting to call me out in "emotions/feeling" that you seem to think are in what I type when in actuality they are not there; would it not be better to keep the thread on topic instead of derailing it in asinine babble?

Back on topic: I really do not see any type of dynamic destruction. Possible something along the lines of a city having a "Normal State" and a "Damaged State". The damage state loading after you enter a city cell that has been attacked by a dragon.

BFBC2 is only semi-destructible, not full out destruction. A real destruction simulator is Red Faction, where every building is rendered with real properties from the world (glass, wood, steel, etc) and breaks and fall just like a real building wood if it was hit by rockers or what have you. Regardless, I wouldn't really expect a feature like this to make it into Skyrim. It has never seemed to be an interest or focus of Bethesda in any TES and even FO games.

Yes it would be great, but that would be very hard to pull off right. What if you set a building on fire? And the shopkeeper dies? You wouldn't get a quest from him. Which would be cool, but what if it's an essential character? How do you take on such situations?

In my opinion Bad Company 2 does it ALOT better. And the ground can be deformed as well.
In Red Faction you wind up with buildings that are only being held up by a single laws-of-physics defying strut.

I think it sems as if too many people just say things like "too much resources are required", "too difficult", "too much coding", "too much time", "just doesn't work", etc...
I'm not saying that I know it myself. But seriously, people: I can almost assure that you have no true idea of such things, unless you've made an advanced game yourself with these features.
If you have no idea of what you're saying; then at least say that too, or don't say anything like that at all.

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I think this would be great. A lot of games have flammable environments. I think it would be extra cool, considering that we have dragons that breathe fire
It would indeed be pretty weird (and immersive & atmospheric-breaking) if a powerful dragon comes and breathes fire, but nothing catches fire.

Flammable environments existed partly in Oblivion (for characters), so I believe it's really not very hard to do... A mod even applied it to objects, so that they would burn by a fire spell for instance.
Also people need to understand that flammable environments doesn't mean that the object is destroyed or anything. It means that it just catches fire. I'm pretty sure it would be returned to normal once the fire effect is decreasing over time
Example (Crysis mod): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpyCWXbnsDE
Example (Far Cry 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwJbxixz4E

Freezable environments would be awesome too from frost spells (but not as obligatory as flammable). Crysis had this fully; a complete "snow/freeze" shader applied to all objects. I'm sure something similar could be done in Skyrim.
Example (Crysis frost shader): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJamPg9ZBW4

Mars = way less gravity

And back on topic
The easiest way for them to do it, not destroying objects merely burning them, requires replacing textures. So they would develop extra textures for stuff thats been burned. Maybe different models for flora. Thats a bit time consuming.

Although, with dragons attacking towns...
If I don't see stuff burning, then later repairing, I will be very disappointed...

I wouldn't really say "WAY LESS". Mars is ~0.3gs whereas Earth is ~1.0gs.
That said, the lesser gravity was in no-way modeled anywhere else. You fell the same, rovers stuck to the ground, debris fell the same. Etc. etc. So that is a bit of a silly argument.

Awwww... I can't vote fairly.... I'd want the destructibility of a voxel engine. :whistling:

That is NOT confirmed. Actualy, I am 99% sure that everything but buildings is one open cell. Other wise, how would dragons attack the inside of towns and cities? Walk up to the main gate, fade out, fade in on the other side, then start flying around, burning random s****?

A dragon model that is rendered while you are outside of town that is spraying fire.
And another more detailed model that you can actually combat once you enter the cell.

Haha I just checked another thread. Supposedly we don't know about open cities or not... I would pretty much assume they are. It's not really too big of a task/problem for Bethesda. At least it shouldn't be.
Still, no one knows for sure.

Actually, no it wasn't.

After Pete said that a user responded "You just made alot of people happy with that."
To Which Pete responded "Why it has been in every elder scroll game for the past decade"

And later he said he "had a brain fart". And that he knows small towns are open, but knows nothing on the "major cities". In other word,s potentially just like Oblivion.

I'm pretty sure that you are right, from what I've read. But... In Oblivion the city wall blocked the view of the [alternate] outside landscape. If a dragon was depicted flying past the player on the way to a city, it could blast fire at it from the air, and the player would not see below the walls; until they entered the city. Once inside, the dragon could spawn outside the walls, and begin attacking the interior.
It could [theoretically] be done believably in Oblivion now; (as I understand it ~which means I could be wrong).