From: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim/
Is it just me, or am I the only one concerned by that quote?
For me personally, Oblivion's ranged combat made me less than excited. In fact, it was a pet hate of mine. There was a lot of variety in melee combat - blades, blunts or axes, and sub categories within each weapon class that offered varying reach, damage and speed. Not even taking into account that daedric gear was better than iron.
In the ranged combat, on the other hand, there were ranged spells in the destruction school and there was one type of bow - in that each bow had the same range and redraw time - the only factor that varied was damage, and that is only taking into account daedric gear vs iron gear.
Assuming that the reporter is accurate, and that Bethesda will only offer Bows and Magic as projectile weaponry, it would appear that Bethesda are removing a fair chunk of role playing from the player because any character we create in Skyrim has to use either bows or magic in order to survive dragon encounters. Without using them, that article implies that we have to wait for the dragon to land so that we can scrag it (and seeing as the dragon encounters are unscripted, that could mean that we have numerous battles with dragons where they circle around breathing fire at us and we stare up at them helplessly until inevitable death and reload)
For me what is concerning about that article is that it implies that any character I choose to play will be forced through circumstance to choose between using magic or a bow to provide the necessary ranged attack, and not something that would better fit how I am trying to play them.
Therefore, I personally would like to see more ranged combat incorporated in the vanilla game, or at the very least in DLC. I would prefer that we didn't have to rely on the modding community for this one.
I think I would be happy with either of the two following options:
1. (The realistic one) - that we have a greater range in the types of the traditional bows - Longbows, short bows and re-curve bows - with varying stats for both.
2. That there is a greater range of projectile weaponry which would fit most characters. There is a great deal of variety in projectile weapons, apart from bows, there are also: blowguns, slings, crossbows, and throwing weapons (clubs, axes and daggers are already weapon types from Oblivion, whereas spears are not, so the first three have the greatest chance of actually being included by the devs)
What are other people's views on the subject?
I've included a poll - if you have any suggestions for more options in question 2 please post/pm me. I apologize for the strong representation of throwing weapons - throwing weapons are the most common and the easiest to use of projectile weapons. They are also one of the two weapon types believed to have been invented 5 million years ago and still be in use today, so I believe it is justifed.