Could you link me to were he said "If they are not better than in RDR, we will cut them".

I believe he said something like they wouldn't do them if they weren't at least comparable to the best on the market.

Here's what he said.

"Something we're messing with, and we don't know where it's going to end up. There were things with the Oblivion horses. We liked having them. They weren't the greatest implementation of horses. And now you see things come out like Red Dead. There are more horses in games, and we feel like just the basic implementation we did in Oblivion isn't going to be good enough. We are currently attempting things with that, and I don't know where it's going to end up."

All he says is that the Oblivion implementation is too basic. He mentions red dead of a good example of horses done very well, but not once does he say they HAVE to be that quality to put them in. He also mentions there are more games with horses now, and I'm sure none of those are as good as RDR either, but they didn't cut them purely for that reason. I see no evidence that Todd has that high level as the basic standard. After all, horses are a major part of that sort of game, being a western with cowboys and horse taming and so on. It would be a smaller part of Skyrim if they put it in. Just like some good beatemups will have a more complex fighting system than Skyrim. When you are a game that is aiming for a diverse amount of gameplay styles, it is impossible to make the implementation of every feature better than the best implementation in a game with a larger focus on that.

Have it your way. Thanks for the quote by the way. I hope mounts are in, as well as mounted combat, but I definitely don't think we'll see the latter.

Edit: just saw your edit and I absolutely agree with you there.

Mounted combat would be a harder thing to do, yes. And it would probably not be very fun either I'd imagine.

I wouldn't put too much stock in anything shown on the carving in the announcement trailer myself, after all, it's an artistic carving depicting the artist's vision of what the events foretold in the prophecy might look like, we're not meant to take it literally, and certainly, it may not, and in fact likely does not, accurately reflect real gameplay, and just because we see something on the wall doesn't mean things will look exactly the same in game.

Or if that doesn't satisfy you, remember that Todd has said that they are not sure yet if horses will be in or not, and we will only have them if they can do them well, they would not say this if it was already decided from the start that they would be in, so logically, Bethesda would have known at the time that they created the trailer that it might not be in the game, yet if it still is in the trailer, than that must mean we're not intended to take that literally. Now, that's not to say we won't see it, but it does mean that we shouldn't take the announcement trailer a evidence for it.

Myself, I think there's a pretty good chance that we'll be able to ride horses, but I doubt that mounted combat will be an option, because not only do we need a good horse riding system then, we also need the mechanics and animations for fighting while doing so as well.



That's correct. He doesn't say that they have to be as good as Red Dead Redemption, though the quote DOES indicate that Bethesda won't be satisfied with a half-hearted implementation of horses, it shows that with more games using horses, if Bethesda does horses, they need to do more than they did with them in Oblivion to compete, but that doesn't mean they have to be as good as Red Dead Redemption's horses, after all, Skyrim does some things which that game doesn't do, and yes, horses are an important part of Red Dead Redemption, in Skyrim, they'd probably geta somewhat lesser focus.

I know their on topic, I meant my remark was off-topic. Sorry if that was misleading.

Well there is http://83.149.88.131/images/concept_art/ob_concept03B.jpg does Oblivion has Spears in-game?

This.