I prefer real versions because of the technique used. There isn't much room for finesse when your handle is a foot long and the hammer head is a giant block of wood or iron. You can do a lot with a 3-4 foot handle, like push people, grapple them, use a wide overhead arc (like one does when doing heavy deconstruction, by swinging it them running their top-most hand down to the hand gripping the very bottom of the handle. This puts a LOT of force behind the blow), using the point on the other side of the weapon, etc.

I think that's a lot more fun and cool than swinging a comically oversized hammer in the same way each time like a wild buffoon.

Generally it was ok, but I could never get over a the silver longsword, looked just like a toy sword I have. Clearly plastic.

im really interested into seeing how much tessellation they do, if we get dx11. it would be insane, everything from weapons to the stone roads to the terrain.

Well I generally prefer the two handed over sized versions. Those come with handles long enough that it gives the illusion of leverage. And even the one handed ones should have decent sized handles in my opinion. All the art I can think to find where it is over sized but still cool looking(IMO) is copyrighted, so I don't plan on scanning it in and showing them. Recent years I do think it has been trending bigger and bigger, but as long as it looks magical at the same time I am fine with it. Generally I prefer sledge sized heads. D&D from the 70's and 80's is more my speed for the oversized hammers and axes.

I am one of those who would like smaller warhammers. The OB ones lok so soft and impractical, and not really cool either.

Swords and maces were pretty fine.

Very little, if any. The devs said something like "dx11 is in, but we're not using much of it". They also said that they deliberately want to keep all three versions (PC, PS3, X360) looking basically the same. So, no DX11 tricks that'd make the stuff look alot different on the PC.

(Of course, who knows what modders will be able to do, since DX11 is in the engine, even if the vanilla game doesn't use the fancy parts. :shrug:)

Hit someone with a real warhammer, *dies*, swing a TES warhammer, *misses because it takes forever to swing and if it hits it's comparitively weak as the force is too spread out*

Seriously, if you had a fight between 2 equally skilled opponents, one with a sledgehammer and one with a normal nail hammer, nail hammer would win. Focused blow causes serious damage.

Yeah but the guy with the sledge would look cooler.

I like how a slight exaggeration of the war hammer has more attention in this thread than swords that shoot electricity or dragons.

I don't really mind some exaggerations... but at least please Bethesda, tone them down a little bit. Carrying those wacky iron maces around in Oblivion for example, I can't help but feeling like some clueless git carrying some air filled silly-looking plastic toy :S

Same with silver warhammer. Though the steel and iron warhammer and steel mace was a OK in my book. (The Dwemer variant of both was pretty awesome though, and it's all fair game for the Daedric – I figured that anything of Daedric origin is supposed to look p bonkers as a rule of thumb).

honestly I never noticed until 2 years later after I got OB, when my eyes grew accustomed to better graphics.

its not a big deal.

from what we have seen so far skyrim looks great.

I thought it was fine :/

While we're at it warhammers should be only used to finish off enemies on the ground. While we're at it sabers should be only used on horsebacks. While we're at it there shouldn't be weapon and armor made out of glass...

While we're at it there should be no magic, no dragons, no beast races, but only ba dum-tssh all around.

Because TES has both magic and physics, but they are not one and the same, and the warhammer is more than a slight exxageration and looks lame IMO.

The weapons never really bugged me. At least they aren't WOW weapons...

Are you actually serious?

Anyway, I think most of the weapons looked fine except some hammers, the elven sword and dawnfang were kinda ugly and looked awkward to wield also.

I pretty much agree with this. Fantastic design is fine, overly realistic design is bland, but try to at least make them not too awkward-looking.

My sword will get blood all over it, I shall never notice.

Basically don't make them look anything like in a JRPG.

you mean the giant statue sized weapons that have planets and stars orbiting around them and lighting and plasma jetting out from every point !!

Except for the size and shape of those 'daggers' in Oblivion, i think the weapons looked fine :shrug:

Off-topic and nitpicky point, I apologise, but sabres were not only used by cavalry. For example, the officers and sergeants in the 95th regiment of foot, The Rifles, often carried sabres.

As for on-topic - the plastic texture is common to this generation of consoles, as pointed out earlier in the thread. Low poly mesh with too much normal mapping painted on top. It'd look better if it was toned down.

Whilst the ES games are set in their own fantasy world, where feats of amazing skill and strength which would be impossible on Earth are written about, I feel it is nice to have a basis in the sensible. Whilst such feats are possible (like climbing the stairs of a tower doing a handstand wearing full plate armour if I remember the story correctly), not everyone in the world is capable of doing them. I remember a rather large hammer in Morrowind with an encumbrance so high that it was neigh impossible to pick up and still be able to move, and I think the great, oversized hammers should follow suite. Like the old game Severance: Blade of Darkness, perhaps only characters with a high enough strength stat should be able to wield the warhammers with any skill - everyone else slowly flailing them around.
The sword blades however, really should not be as thick as the Elven longsword blade. That really looked odd.

The oddest thing, I feel, about the oversized weapons though is that no footwork was involved in swinging them. All the motion was from the shoulders and arms, when heavy weapons generally should need stance changes and a lot of core movement to get a good swing - old claymores for example.

The only "wtf, this is a big weapon"-moment I had in Ob was the warhammers. But after playing Demon's Souls.. Oh yeah, that game has big weapons.

I thought they looked really good, O_O