see there, that's kinda what I'm talking about. Is it really going to be that way?
There's an old movie called, 'The Incredible Mr. Limpett' about a bored accountant that somehow gets turned into a fish. Takes place during WWII and Mr. Limpett, coming to after falling into the ocean to find he's been magically turned into a blue, cartoon fish, soon learns that he can 'shout' real, real loud and knock out the radar on enemy submarines. Comes in handy as he 'shouts' the American ships over and past the evil Germans patrolling the depths of the Atlantic... looking for things to shoot and eventually, a blue fish that 'shouts'
Entertaining yes... serious, no friekin way.
Man I really hope it isn't anything like that in the game.

I'm with the OP. I think It's pretty silly/lame. I'm going to cringe whenever my female Dunmer finds herself in the situation to ..shout.. her enemies away. (I'm especially wondering what they're going to do with unique voices..)
However, I do understand that it's backed up by lore and I think that's cool. I'm sure they'll execute it fairly well and I'm not bent out of shape about it or anything.

In Lord of the Rings for example there's very little that isn't make-believe, it is after all fantasy, but there's also nothing in particular about the story that feels as though it doesn't belong, nothing that stretches the plausability of the world to the point where the reader or viewer, even given that it is fantasy, questions the common sense of it.

Have you seen the e3 demo?

Yes. I've seen all the Skyrim info a few times over, especially the videos.
I just thought it looked lame/forced. but that might be because I never play a straight up warrior character, so it doesn't really mesh.

Well I don't know what you were expecting, but it's a fairly simple concept which had a predictable form of execution. Hold button down -> Shout phrase -> rinse and repeat when cooldown is off.

Uh yes thanks I understand the concept and the controls involved.
I wasn't expecting anything good or bad really because I thought it was an unappealing thing to promote from the get-go. Therefore I was not disappointed when I saw the e3 demo, just underwhelmed.

Your first paragraph gave me a good laugh and to answer your question, no, I would not be ok with that scenario occurring. However, that is not the case in the Lord of the Rings and Skyrim. We don't have hobbits flying out of Gandalfs' ass and we don't have Dovahkiin shooting laser beams from his mouth and flying ponies into the sunset. In actuality, Skyrim is providing us a completely new narrative and setting to explore for on our own, while also giving us some abilities to tinker with, dragon shouts being one of them. It's a fantasy world and your topic post is basically questioning the validity of dragon shouts in a fantasy world.

Compared to Skyrim, how is Lord of the Rings more emotionally engaging and believable? How is it that we can have super-sized Elephants walking around or Arwen summoning a wave to wash away Ring Wraiths as believable, but a character of exceptional power, a person that holds the power to speak the tongue of dragons and use it against them, is lame, cheesy, or far-fetched? I know i'm beating a dead horse here, but where are you drawing this imaginary line and suddenly coming to the conclusion that Dragon Shouts just aren't believable and will detract from the immersiveness. If anything, it's adding to the overall lore of the game and immersiveness because the Dragonborn are people capable of utilizing Thu'um. If they don't include it, it detracts from immersiveness and lore.

If your original post had just been the first paragraph it would have been a valid concern, but when you go off in the second paragraph comparing Dragon shouts to Tolkein's fantasy world it completely undermines your original statement. Both worlds are so far from our world, you can't suddenly start drawing parallels and determine that Tolkein's is more believable. Skyrim and LOTR are practically the same setting when you look at it. We've got dragons, giants, trolls, elves, humans, dark dungeons, diverse environments, etc. Arwen's ability to summon a tidal wave by whispering words can even be paralleled to Skyrim's dragonborn summoning bad weather to rain on the dragon's parade, but oh wait, I guess that's a little too cheesy.

To each his own I guess.

k.

Edit: On second thought, how would you imagine them or expect them to be for them to be more appealing? I'm curious to know.

Second Edit: Re-edited the first edit.

cmation... good point on Arwen, as there's a definite parallel there, but somehow for me at least, it fits perfectly within the mystical context of Tolkien's elves, whereas the idea of 'shouting' dragon language just seems.. I don't know.... hokey maybe. Again, I don't know how the developer's have chosen to employ it during the actual gameplay. Hopefully it will be a very understated type of power in terms of presentation and not something overdone. I was new to Oblivion and still don't know very much about TES' lore or history. I just want a video game that will match Tolkien's sense of detail towards creation and his ability to validate what we know isn't real by not letting the 'fantasy' aspect of what he's imagined get away from him.
Turning a slow moving river into sudden rush of white water in the effigy of wild horses, as Arwen did by whispering was just sorta cool, it worked. Knocking somebody over by shouting at them, if that's how the game turns out, just isn't.

cmation... good point on Arwen, as there's a definite parallel there, but somehow for me at least, it fits perfectly within the mystical context of Tolkien's elves, whereas the idea of 'shouting' dragon language just seems.. I don't know.... hokey maybe. Again, I don't know how the developer's have chosen to employ it during the actual gameplay. Hopefully it will be a very understated type of power in terms of presentation and not something overdone. I was new to Oblivion and still don't know very much about TES' lore or history. I just want a video game that will match Tolkien's sense of detail towards creation and his ability to validate what we know isn't real by not letting the 'fantasy' aspect of what he's imagined get away from him.
Turning a slow moving river into sudden rush of white water in the effigy of wild horses, as Arwen did by whispering was just sorta cool, it worked. Knocking somebody over by shouting at them, if that's how the game turns out, just isn't.

That's a good question. Honestly for me, a lot comes down to aesthetics (I know that sounds shallow, but it's an immersion thing). If they implemented the dragon shouts in a way that seems well suited for a character beyond the male-warrior prototype then I'd be impressed. I guess the guttural shouts we've been seeing/hearing are well suited for the Nord warrior that graces our forum background, however what about a female Altmer mage or a stealthy Argonian? I guess my primary anxiety is how they will make these shouts 'fit' other characters. I would be really impressed if they did female/male shout voices for each race, but I guess we probably won't find out until release (perhaps my fears are completely unwarranted).
It can definitely be argued that it's an oxymoron to make a more subtle shout to suit more subtle characters though.

I think different voices are confirmed. In the sound desing video months back, lead sound designer talked about concerns how the shouts fit other characters and how they had to choose carefully the actors for each. Might be even that they have different voices for all gender and race combinations, but I'm not sure.

EDIT: Ofcourse it indeed feels quite weird to think a bosmer running around shouting things to death.

I think different voices are confirmed. In the sound desing video months back, lead sound designer talked about concerns how the shouts fit other characters and how they had to choose carefully the actors for each. Might be even that they have different voices for all gender and race combinations, but I'm not sure.

EDIT: Ofcourse it indeed feels quite weird to think a bosmer running around shouting things to death.

Dragonshouts.

I'm not trying to judge or deride a game I've yet to play, but I'm just wondering if any other fans out there think the idea of Dragonshouts comes across as being a little bit on the lame side.
I don't know, after playing the game, which is right there at the top of my 'most anticipated' list, I might find that 'shouting' has been implemented with none of the silly, over-the-top gameplay mechanics that so many developers feel are necessary to make the player feel powerful, like the Plasmids from Bioshock for instance where you can squeeze killer bees out of your hand.... fun playing around with sure, but really quite lame, detracting from the sincerity and immersiveness of the gameworld because it's just... well, silly.

In Lord of the Rings for example there's very little that isn't make-believe, it is after all fantasy, but there's also nothing in particular about the story that feels as though it doesn't belong, nothing that stretches the plausability of the world to the point where the reader or viewer, even given that it is fantasy, questions the common sense of it.

Just wondering if anyone else thinks Dragonshouts might be a bit goofy.

Shooting hobits out of your ass = Shouting to use magic in a world where mages shoot fireballs, conjure daedra, summon magic armor to protect themselves, and cover people in a magic sparkle to lower the price of goods ( which they never seem to notice). I really don't see how shouting to use a spell, a spell which is almost identicle to any other, routed in lore, and makes logical connections to every other concept in the game is goofy at all.