So from what I understand of the game mechanics is you can equip pretty much whatever you want in either hand, be it a spell, shield, or one handed weapon. I was thinking about this and had a sudden realization...

"Maybe my character can be left handed." Although inadvertently, by equipping a sword in the left hand and a shield in the right.

I am left handed in real life and it kind of bothers me when games label the right hand as the "main hand" and left as the "off-hand", which is pretty much all the time. While I those specific wording were taken from WoW, most games have unofficial labels. Does this bother anyone else?

So do you think this will be possible in the game? Am I misinterpreting the mechanics? Does anyone actually care? Also, to those who picked the third choice in the poll...

Because I can my friend, because I can.

Possible? I'm not sure, but they're probably not intentionally supporting it.

I'd love to make a left handed character, however.

I am right handed but yea I think you should have a choice in every game. I'm pretty sure you can put a sword or anything else in whatever hand you want to though. It wouldn't make sense not to be able to.

The very fact of the dual wielding system makes this true. Its been confirmed.

well seeing as how you can place items separately into each hand im sure you can be left handed

I'm ambidextrus in most things but writing (i can get a point across but it looks kindergarten)

I have never really thought of this. And my first thought upon reading was who cares. But then I started to wonder.

Is it disorienting to u to always have stuff in the right hand, or is it and equal representation thing. Not beimg an ahole im just curious

Yup , i believe so too :nod:

Yeah, I'm left-handed, and when I heard about the new dual-wield system, the very first thing I thought was, "My character can be left-handed? Yay!"
But I'm not so sure now; I hear that, if you only use one 1h weapon, it defaults to two-handed usage, and I seriously doubt they're going to put in separate animations for having a two-handed weapon in your left hand as opposed to your right -- I mean, the only difference is which hand is on top.
Weapon and shield, however, will almost certainly be Southpaw compatible
But I still really, really hope I can make my character left-handed with any weapon choice. A left-handed main character is one of the reasons I enjoy Zelda games so much, and kept me playing Unreal Tournament 2004 long after it was obsolete. Besides making the character feel more unique and personal to me, I find that it's actually easier for me to play the game... In right-handed FPSes, it feels like there's something out-of-proportion on the screen, like something is zoomed in wrong or something. I get used to it after half an hour, but it's nicer to be able to pick left-handed right off the bat.

But lefties are evil! I find this topic offensive against the non serial killers on the forum..

Welp, can't argue with that. :mohawk:
(this emote's left-handed!)

Honestly, as a leftie, you get used to living in a right handed world, to the point where I'm so used to weapons and such being set up for right handed people in game that If I put my person's sword and shield in the opposite hands that it would probably throw me off, despite that being my actual handed-ness. Hell, I'd most likely forget I could make my person left handed after a while because I don't want to get used to different controls and looks.

Aslong as leftclick is the strongest hand im happy

It can be disorienting if you have been playing something where the character is left-handed, but mostly it makes the character seem much more familiar and REAL. For some reason having that simple choice makes the game feel much more likeable to me. I kind of figured people who are right handed, which is the majority, probably don't really think about it, which is not a big deal.

The choice really just makes the character personal, which is good all around.

My character will be right handed, he will also hunt down any left handed npcs and cleanse nirn of their filth lol, I haven't thought of a cool serial killer nickname yet though

You know what's going to be weird is getting used to the fact that we'll be right clicking to attack if we're right handed. THAT is going to be funky. Unless they're crazy and they invert the buttons.

Perhaps they can simply have an option to invert the mouse clicks? That would be nice. Left handed players could keep it like normal, and right handed players could invert them so left click swings uses the right hand weapon, and right click uses the left.

That's what I mean by unofficially labelling the hands. One would be stronger than the other, or one would be faster, or whatever. I am left handed, and while its true that living in a right hand world forces you to adapt (really not as big a deal as some people make it, unless your right hand is crippled or something), my left hand is the strongest and most accurate when it comes to making movements. I want my character to be like this too, or at least feel like this when playing.

For reference, I fence left handed (yes I fence) because my left hand is much better at making small, finite movements accurately, but I play guitar right handed, because it is impossible to find a left handed guitar at a store. Since I have learned to play like this I can't play left handed, its just too disorienting and the muscle memory is already built in my hands.

P.S. -- I cannot write right handed to save my life. It looks like scribbles with no actual meaning when I try.

I didn't think of that, it would be pretty confusing (for me anyway), although you could simply change your control setup anyway.

I play guitar right-handed because I think it's easier to move my fingers quickly on the strings with my left hand than my right, and strumming doesn't really take that much focus so I can do it with my right hand.

And I'm positive that we'll be able to go into mouse controls and change the mouse buttons around. You can do that in Oblivion, where there ISN'T a fancy new dual-wielding system. There's no doubt in my mind that we'll be able to do so in Skyrim. I mean, it's just a given that modern games allow you to switch around controls.

...Unless you're on a console. I hadn't thought of that. You guys might have a slightly harder time. But there's usually a "Southpaw" option in games these days anyways.

(Interesting fact: Scaevola is latin for Left Hand -- I just switched out the C for a K for style points.)

With the new system we should be able to make lefties, sorta. What I mean is when we want to use sword and shield you can wield the sword left handed of course. However if we switch to a claymore instead of a one hander I'm sure it'll look and feel like the character is right handed again. (One would naturally support most of the weight of such a large weapon with their dominant hand to better direct the thing.) At least there will be some options this time around though, would like to make at least one of my characters left handed.

I agree with you. Even though it wouldn't change anything for me the choice should be there.

I'm hoping to finally be able to create my own left-handed character. I'm worried that there's going to be a left hand handicap, or even worse, the game is just going to automatically put the sword in the right hand and the shield in the left. I don't see what's so hard about being able to be left handed. The game is clearly designed to let you equip stuff in different hands easily.

Development of such an idea would take time/effort/resources away from other features, ones that presumably would have more of an impact on gameplay.

Link's a lefty. I always liked that about the Legend of Zelda. Makes him just a little unique.

Not only Link. Raphael, probably the most badass character of Sould Calibur is left handed, and I'm sure there are more.

About the topic, we'll, if it likes to left handed people it's great. Though I understand why in most games your character is right handed: it's more common.

Anyway, I remember that among the vikings, Housecarls always fought with their left hand (not all of them were handed, but wielding this way gave them advantage). It would be cool if you found a group of soldiers or whatever that wielded their sword with their left hand.

I don't really see why it would be hard to implement in any game really... I am a lefty as well and very few games have the main protagonist a lefty. If they say you can equip both hands then you can probably be a lefty sword wielder. This is Elder Scrolls after all and the game shouldn't be limited for my hero to be a righty. :tongue: