Your right, it is by the teeth, that tear their prey lethally... There are those animals that do kill with claws and claws can still be lethal from other animals but teeth tearing the animal is the most lethal activity. Biting on a preys throat is one way of killing an animal but it's not the majority by far. Most predators kill by mutilating their prey, getting to the throat isn't always the easiest option. Throat kills are usually the favorite of big cats.

But chances of having a downside isn't the same as a downside. It just throws the game backwards back into more dice rolls that don't need to be in. I really don't see why you need spears when we have other polearms in the game that have much better gameplay value than a spear would.

We have no way of knowing it will be extended or not. We might be able to make a rough assumption based on Oblivion's development, but that would have literally no foundation.
In regard to sprinting, I don't know if it's worth the effort or not; I haven't experienced the overarching system in which it might be used, and I therefore have absolutely no time or context to judge how good or bad it is.





In fact, let's just repeat that for the topic at hand, in a less-subjective format:
No one has experienced the overarching system in which [Insert Likely Ommision Here] / [Insert Disputable Mechanic Here] might be used, and therefore everyone have absolutely no time or context to judge how good or bad it is.

I loved spears in Morrowind. But I also explicitly stated that I wanted a game that would surpass Morrowind. And it is by no means required that a game reuse anything at all in terms of mechanics from Morrowind to do that.

And any argumentation about the USE or FUN of spears is pretty pointless. Obviously they are useful, and virtually any mechanic, done right, can be made fun. It instead boils down to implementation-time related to the level of direct constistency with a narrowed centric theme. That is what will determine spears/crossbows/what-have-you, and very little else.

Such as ?

I still haven't seen anything that was said definitively in the other magazines as false. That's like saying "Don't take what GI said as official because you can't say it is translated correctly"....

Just because they are written in a foreign language doesn't make them any less official than any other magazine.

This really, honestly infuriates me on some level. I know mechanically they would be a pain, but I fondly remember toting my Spear of Bitter Mercy back in the day, levitating well over the heads of my enemies, toting my medium armor and using a crossbow for ranged combat...

:sigh:

...those were the days, huh?

Are people really arguing over which wounds types deal more damage?

To start, battles rarely last long enough for actual killing blows. You get a deep gash across the belly, you tend to fall over and slowly die unless someone puts you out of your misery. Same with a stab wound.

You usually fight to incapacitation or retreat rather than a single death blow, and both weapon types are effective at achieving that goal.

If you differentiate between the wound types, you also need to take into account effectiveness VS armor type. Chainmail would be very effective against slashing, somewhat effective against larger surface area thrusts, and fairly ineffective against crushing damage.

Gets too complicated to put in place for the purposes of a game.

First off, it seems a little strange that Bethesda would give different information to the different parts of the world, and from what they said, the other magazines would contain what GameInformer contained.
Second, they stated that Spellmaking was out, which has been confirmed by Todd that it is not, but that they are working on it. And since they have one thing that is wrong (may be wrong) more things might just as well be wrong.
I do not doubt the magazines, I doubt the translations

And what in GI was translated? Bethesda Softworks is English (US) and GI is English (US), so there's absolutely no translation in the picture...

Spears...were....OP. Why try to balance something that is broken when you can implement weapons that have the same basic feel of a spear but actually plays in a way that is balanced. Bardiches and halberds are swung, thus are easier to control, not being able to exploit them to keep people out of reach by spamming poke. I don't see why people need spears when you have things that are basically spears except with different weapon types attached to the top.



When I used google translate to translate the french version, it never said that there was no spellmaking, it said that there wasn't any spellmaking in what they were shown. Also, what we found out in the toddcast, GI was told more than we got in the article but many of the things that were told and weren't put in the mag were spoilers, thus GI never gave some of the information that the other magazines did such as the spoiler of the beginning of the game which I wish I could erase reading but it's too late....

I would of liked them to RP a hunter type character. I will survive with just a bow I guess.

The more the merrier.

I never agreed with quantity for quality.TES doesn't have the best combat and it won't.And you could say vast amount of items are for MMOs,which is true.But I think what made TES great was its balance between quality AND quantity.I don't think Morrowind's spears were unbalancing-broken or useless.It was just a matter of choice,and more eye candy when I opened a chest.

What? When has TES never had good combat and it won't? If there is one thing the doomsayers should know is that things in TES don't stay the same. Just because you think the combat in the past wasn't the best doesn't mean that skyrim's won't be. They have quality and quantity but putting in spears and trying to balance them from what they were in Morrowind would either harm quality or quantity, or both. I'd rather have pole arms that were more flashy looking then a simple spear and were balanced then having spears return which is just a pole with a barbed tip.

Perhaps I've not been as diligent in tracking this argument as I should have, but how will adding spears be quantitatively harmful, yet adding polearms won't?
If spears are added, other content hypothetically can become watered down due to quantity. If polearms are added, how would it escape the same caveat?

Ignoring of course, the assumed argument that polearms are inherently better-balanced than spears in a virtual machine where any number of infinitesimal balance choices can be assigned to things. As well as the fact that if they had a base of experience for implementing spears in Morrowind, it would be easier to rework a starting foundation than to build an entirely new one with polearms.

So I don't really grasp what your point is here.

He said the traditional form of spears isn't in yet. So they might already have something similar, or even traditional spears might still be added.

This is the 5th TES game (7th if you count Redguard and Battlespire) and only 1 has had spears. Why is everyone so surprised?

Slightly disappointed, not surprised. Much more likely to be the result of animation work rather than game balance (if indeed they don't make it in somehow), which is a much less contentious reason in any case.

I'm still hopeful for halberds, glaives, and the like being in the game. I'll forget all about spears if I get my heavy armour + halberd archetype.

No. Some people stated that Spellmaking was out. Based on the info, the rest kept telling that there was no point going nuts over something not definite.

I see no other contradiction between the GI info and the European coverage. Merely people jumping the gun on unconfirmed stuff or speculation. Different thing altogether. And it doesn't make sense for Bethesda to give the same info to everybody. How do you keep people interested if you keep on repeating yourself ? People were whining already the GI online had too much info already said in the magazine. *shrug*


So, us ? Is that we don't know our own native languages, or english ? I hope you seriously don't mean that, cause you understand I'd be a mite miffed, if after the time we spent translating and typing, we were told we did a lousy job. Could have read the mag and left you hanging.

something as simple as spears and they don't put them in..stupid i was hoping for spears

I don't personally see how a dice roll for this case would really hurt.

Then again, to instead adding other types of polearms does not alleviate the issue of the lopsided combat by staggering your foes from the safe distance, whether you swung or pokes about with it. I'd still think that should spears/polearms were in, they need to make it easily broken down or disarmed by larger weapons.

For the record, I'm not one of those who advocates the inclusion of spears over other kinds of polearms.

Some of us did appreciate that, for the record. And your English is excellent - I assume you know that, and were just making the point, but the problem clearly wasn't you.

It's not exactly simple. New weapon animations, balancing weapon range with damage, new perks, new weapon models, changing AI to use/respond to spears. Not to mention the "optional" work, which would cause people some consternation such as using spears in a cavalry charge, receiving a charge, throwing the spear, etc.

a huge RPG with dragons and nords, and no spears? that is soooooo weak Bethesda So yet again an elder scrolls game without a single spear, boring, sad and it makes no sense att all to keep them out.

Well what wrong with spears?
Spears was even more common then sword in medieval.
What is hard to be done?
Animation? Developers add much more new animation it has better quality then previous games, engine is better now, is that to be hard make some animations for spears?
If in animation is problem then claymores and hammers will have the same animation, long sword and daggers be the same, its hard to believe.
Modeling? Swords and mace even harder to be done.
Balancing issue, is balancing is problem? Common it not mounted combat why spear is unbalanced?

I r no longer angry, since as soon as I can get http://tesalliance.org/forums/uploads/1296686027/gallery_640_167_86039.jpg into Skyrim I will
Made it for Oblivion but I think it will fit into Skyrim quite well

I've never used spears, so I don't care about them not being there.