Well, you can't do that either in Skyrim.

I say no. Too much hassle to deal with. If they did this, because potions will play a more prominent role in the game, Mage characters would get screwed for having to use more than everyone else.

I would want it, but I would settle with having potions that work gradual and not be spammish.

There will be animations for making potions (I beleive this was confirmed somewhere, but its reasonable considering theyre doing more animations in general cuz of that technology they made). Unsure about animations for drinking potions, I think it would make sense, wouldnt be too hard, plus it would mean that you would have to take a momentary pause from combat, meaning potions need to be used strategically, not allowing potion spam.

Game mechanic wise, all they need to do is add some cooldown or heal over time (like New Vegas) effect to potions along with getting rid of inventory pause (think Morrowind). Animation is not necessary.

even heal over time wouldnt give the strategic value of animation. think reloading in shooters without the animation, just the slow replenishing of bullets.

We should stop running around, halt down to walk speed, holster the weapon and then drink the potion.
I challenge the OP to run at the same time as he has two things as large and heavy as swords in his hands and then try to drink coca-cola that he has in his backpack, while still running all the time and holding the swords.
Applying poison should also have an animation, for example when poisoning an arrow we would dip the arrow head into the poison bottle, or the dagger. An animation for potion drinking would be balanced, they shouldn't be used in mid battle anyway, in a real fight your have your head chopped of if you try to drink something when your enemy is attacking you.

i think holstering the weapon would be unnecessarily restrictive. since you can dual weild, it shouldnt take two hands to drink a potion, leaving one hand free to hold the weapon. perhaps sheathe one weapon if dual weilding though.

I gotta say the real problem with this is that it kinda takes you out of the combat, also it would PO me pretty bad, one reason I dont like dead rising

The idea is that you do not drink potions during combat unless an opportunity arises e.g. they are paralysed. This way it makes you think/play more tactically instead of running in not worrying about being owned. That is where you could argue that making them more of a commodity, rather than being in every sack/chest/crate, could also counterract this issue.

what if you could wear one of these? http://utrashed.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Beer-Hat-Beer-Helmet-pic-3.jpg only with potions instead of beer cans

yes but with a chance to break the potions on hit

drinking animation should at least be an option. so that the more "hardcoe" of us can get that more tactical combat feel

seriously, the good old RUNE game animation, quick drink and smash the cup on the floor, and good to go again

I'm all for it. Including the concept of "readied potions" for fast access. Even going into the menu could have an animation where you simply take a knee. So you press the button, the animation plays (takes only half a sec), then the menu is shown. Exit menu, play the animation, and you're fit to go. We do this in Arma2 when we access gear or read the map, and I haven't seen any complains about it.

that sounds epic, id really like that in Skyrim