I only bring this up because the Assassin's Creed series seems to keep coming up in different thread, and I won't deny, I think with good reason, AC had some truly ground breaking innovations that really aren't just neat tricks, they're changing the standards in the industry across the board.

One thing I wanted to ask though is something that I actually thought about when I was on the Elder Scrolls 5 speculation forums 2 years ago. The possibility of climbing, either as a new skill or controlled by acrobatics (I prefer it being under acrobatics cause their similar enough and it would make acrobatics more important, but I digress)

What I was wondering is what people think is the likelihood of a free-run like ability or at the very least the ability to climb things like building in Skyrim, and if they think this is a good idea or not.

2 other points I'd like to make are these. A) I just rented Mirror's Edge, which absolutely proves 1st person free running is more than just possible, it flows just as easily as 3rd person, and B) Bethesda is already coming out with Brink, which uses the S.M.A.R.T. system to do just that, 1st person free running, so (even though Beth isn't necessarily developing Brink, they're publishing it which means they probably have that system at their disposal) the point is they have a system they could use, or if not I'm sure they could develop their own. From what I've seen it doesn't seem to imposing, and while "free-running" might be a bit inappropriate for TES (though its setting isn't too off from AC, so i think for Assassin type characters or even just thieves it'd be perfect) wouldn't climbing be not only possible but make alot of sense for Skyrim and even add an exciting new aspect of stealth gameplay?

Yeah, I'd like to just see a climbing skill implemented into the game, but not full on parkour like in ACII. Just some basic climbing moves would be nice.

Climbing poses some balancing issues though. If you are able to climb, you can just get on top of buildings or trees and snipe all your enemies, making melee weapons unfavorable.

To some degree i agree. But just like with Sneak in Oblivion, they put the guards sneak ability way up (which also determines detection ability) so they were hard to sneak by. Likewise I would imagine guards in cities could climb too. Otherwise I would imagine in the wild mostly what you'd climb is trees, and I'm sure bandits can climb trees (maybe even make the prospect of being ambushed from trees daunting). As for things like animals... well, that would be unfair, but hey, hunters use trees to hide all the time. Maybe make it so that while your in a tree you have to hold on with your hands, thus you cant shoot a bow. But admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of in the cities, where I don't think balancing would be too hard.

Just put a door on the roof of every building so guards can reach you. And before you start to climb White Gold Tower, make wind a factor.

I think the climbing AI is very hard to implement. you have to make the NPC find every little spot on the wall that's climbable and get to each point in series, otherwise people are gonna complain "hey that guard climbed up the flat wall like a gecko! Not FAIR! The game is broken!"

Remember how in Fallout NV your companions have problem following you when you walk up no the mountain?

Yeah, its hard. I mean really, I can't imagine making a pathfinding AI that good, But if AC can do it, I'm sure Beth can

I'd say simple climbing, full free running would be cool but isn't quite in with TES spirit.
Climbing shouldn't be too much of an issue, guards always have plenty of archers, and I don't think every building would be climable.

And if you get your skill so high you can climb up any surface, I say you've earned your invincibility from melee attacks, mastering a skill should be a good thing, not a gimmick

by the way, what's the point of climbing anyways.. if it's for escaping the enemy, then if the enemy can climb too, it wouldn't work. I would rather go with mountain-climbing first rather than house climbing, because mountain climbing gives you a purpose - exploration.

I feel like free running wouldn't be a good addition to the game personally.

Ubisoft takes a long time to perfect that free running system and make it what it is, and it's good they do that, that's a main focus of their game.

But if the Bethesda were to try and put something like that into Skyrim it'd be a disaster I'm sure. Because they'd have to put so much time and effort into that one thing, into just getting it to work and look right that the rest of the game would suffer.

I don't think that people realize just how hard it is to make a kind of free running thing work. Bethesda can't just quick cook something up and throw it in, that's ridiculous.

Agreed. I think this was something that i didn't expect would matter that much to me in Oblivion, but it ended up being kind of a let down. Somehow being called a "Master" of something made me feel like I should be almost super human in that aspect, and while its understandable that this wasn't true what I felt disappointed with is I didn't really feel like a "Master" of anything, even with my fully maxed out god-character (shame on me I know). I just feel like, since it gets harder to level stuff at higher levels anyway, being a master of something shouldn't just feel like, hey, your really really good at this, better than everyone else in fact, but there's nothing special about your abilities, I think it should feel like, hey, your still within human bounds, but your so good with a sword you can slice an arrow in two as it flies by you, or your so good with destructive magic the earth shakes when it feels you about to cast something because its afraid of your shear destructive power. I don't want to end up being so powerful everything is puddy in my hands, i want to fight equally imposing god-like foes, but I just want to feel like if this is mastery, it really isn't possible to get any better than i am