This is not the first time someone has brought up this idea. I spent a lot time thinking of ways this can work.

Like how the lockpicks worked in Morrowind? No thanks. I prefer menus. They make it easier to make what you want and understand your limits and perhaps what you may need or what outcomes may happen when crafting things.



That would work. It sounds like it works like a menu, but you navigate in real time.

Good for a nerdgasm, but only just. After a while everyone would get annoyed that they have to waste time staring at the same animation over and over again instead of actually playing the game (i.e. quests, combat and exploration).

If that an RP choice (an outsider sorta thing) maybe u could sneak into town during the cover of darkness.

Crafting is playing the game , but I see your point. Using the same animations over and over to craft thing same thing over and over. It gets annoying.

Well that's why you add a quick craft option. After you craft a weapon for the first time, you get it's picture up on the wall. Now when you want you craft it again, You just click on the picture and the item crafts. No mus no fus.

I want my char to have this scimitar : http://www.andreas.blicher.info/images/Scimitar.jpg its simple yeah but so much more styleish than these cheesy fantasy swords like http://www.aceros-de-hispania.com/image/fantasy-swords/fantasy-sword.jpg
Hopefully prior to starting I will "design" my weapon being able to select from a choice of blades hilts and handles and more to further weapon customization would be cool. This is something I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out. Bethesda as always I have faith you will deliver us something good.

Dark messiah of might and magic did it pretty http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_zIgTWWQJM
, although there is room for improvement

Um in some Online world in neverwinter 1, you had generic animations for smithing smelting, cooking, fletching, bowing and so on it was like 1 to 2 second each so no fuss about time.
In the end it was great, cause it gave the feeling of achievement without being boring unless you did it daylong, and you never had daylong to do it as ressources had weight and your carrying habilities where dictated by strenght.
So doing something wasn t only being there sipping trough a menu, it was also adventuring in the world cause ressources where expensive, without being outrageous but expensive enought so you wouldn t be willing to buy them.
Raising your skill was quite personnal, which IMHO was quite immersive. No I-WIN button.

As for the drum rotating with molds the idea is good but this kind of achievement of the idea is horrible.
I would much prefer a book. Smithing and forging is about hammering not heating lead on an old pan on your standart oven kichen and once liquid dumping it on a soap mold and letting it cool, that feel cheap.
TES so far has wonderfully implemented books, i think it a possibility here too. It may be sad for reading challenged player, but in the end it will be to their benefit too. Implement a good menu system and it should be fine for creating, experiencing, and knowing what you need to collect in the wilderness. (Hard to consult the recipe if it is an integrant part of the forge.)

I agree with you. But i would prefer Beth to concentrate on system leaving perfecting to Modders.
And i would think that if you want to mescle style you would have to dominate forging that style, but i agree this is a hell of an idea, especially for customization.

Um....we can?

Unless you simply mean that there wasn't a menu and that we actually saw ourselves to every action.

And yes, that would be totally badass.

"banausic thrill"?

I beg your pardon, sir. Is that your sarcasm showing. :blush2:

Yeah! And let's see, according to most blacksmiths I've seen videos from, making a one-handed sword takes several real-world days, so in-game that would only be about an hour or so of nonstop hammering and quenching repeatedly...

Whoops. The attractiveness of that idea went through the floor in a hurry. :shrug:

They most likely will do something like that at least the game is more advanced now.

I'm wary of the whole crafting thing. It sounds great on paper but more often than not crafting in games are either a menu that isn't really that interesting, or if it is real-time it becomes tedious quick.

Maybe you pick what you want forged art a blacksmiths within the world and then an AI blacksmith does it. You will have to wait a few days for your item to be completed.

I believe that defeats the purpose of you being a blacksmith.

Id bet its like Fallout, when you Bench Make items.
Except with an interactive animation.
Press A,X, to swing hammer, etc.

I meant it as an alternative, wouldn't make sense unless you owned your own smithy etc on top of being an explorer. If you chose to forge weapons through an AI medium it would add to the whole living breathing world and it would facilitate customisation of you weapons/armor.

As I like to call it, shopping list style. If they keep it that simple, I don't see why it would be worth a skill.

There might be some generic smithing animation and alchemy animation and enchanting animations but thats all id expect as it would require a huge amount of animations to do each and every item.

I think smithing should be something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBUNcRT5RZI

that's Dark messiah of might and magic

It adds some level of inmersion to it and doesn't look so tedious, i've played this game and one of the best things of it, in my opinion, is this crafting system (also the combat)

I must've missed the alchemy workbench. Can you provide a link to the info or something?

Im not really a fan of Dark Messiah, at least not the crap they ported to the 360.
However, it had the ocasional smithing part. It was in first person, and in real time, and was actually not bad.
You worked the fires with bellows, melted the bar in a crucible, pour it into a mold, quench it with water to solidify it, reheat it, hammer it, then create the handle.
It wasn't bad really, it sounds like it could be, but it honestly wasn't.
You could change what you are smithing by switching out the mold.

If they did this, which I would actually like, I would want a slider to change how much time it should take. In Dark Messiah, it was too fast. Melting, reheating, and working the fires, and hammering were all instant, which it shouldn't be. Nor should it take 3 hours. So I'd like a slider to change the time to a more enjoyable one, no one persons idea of the best time would be best.

So I'd be in favor for real-time, 1st person, no menu smithing.

I had forgotten about this but:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/10/video-behind-the-scenes-of-skyrim.aspx

At 1:51 you see some notes on the crafting process, on the right side also it says "player playing, cool anims" which means there are almost certainly some sort of animations and interactions regarding the various crafting skills.