Wow... you're really taking this into the wrong direction... I mean 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

1: The man is an EXPERT blacksmith.
2: It's ONLY a sharpening wheel, and there's no way he can cut himself.
3: I guess after so many years (like... 20+ years?) of being a blacksmith he doesn't have to look at the axe when he sharpens it (personally I think even I would be able to do it without looking at it for a couple of seconds while talking to someone).
4: The worst he can get out of it is a scratch.

5 and most importantly: How the hell can you say it's not better than Oblivion's dialogue system? Know what? Alright, they might as well put in Oblivion's dialogue system, I guess there's no difference ha?

Oblivion dialogue system (for you information):
- Time stops while we speak to the NPC.
- The NPC can move his head - ONLY (which means he can't do other jobs like sweeping, sharpening, etc.)
- There's a MASSIVE zoom in when a NPC opens up a conversation with you.
- The NPC looks at you and you only.
- Conversation is a MODE the game is in (somekind of a mode).

Skyrim's dialogue system:
- Time carries on.
- There's no zoom.
- NPCs carry on their normal jobs/actions.
- You can have multiple conversations at once.
- You can leave a conversation whenever you feel like by just walking away.
- There's no persuasion game, which means the way NPCs feel about you is determined by choice rather by a mini-game.
- We don't know if NPCs will ALWAYS look at you while conversing, and even if they do, at least they carry on with the things they do their entire lives and don't have to look at what their doing each and every second.

Dialogue in DA:O was some kind of a cinematic-in-game mode. Of course it will be better. It was scripted and animated specifically to be better. But the animations in the conversations in Skyrim aren't planned with specific animations in advance. They just speak to you whenever you approach them and while their doing their normal duties.

dude he's a nord he's probably as strong as three men. that and it's skyrim he could have used like a feather spell on it and made it light enough for an infant to pick up.

I cant believe that the characters still slide on the ground when they walk and the rag doll physics are the same as in oblivion which had one of the worst physics ever :/ I think these two things are my biggest gripes about the game.. i dont even think that there are other gripes just these two

I really don't know what the issue is here, the animations are really good.
How they are implemented, on the other hand, isn't that great.
Look at it this way. The running animation looks great. Seeing a npc running into a wall doesn't look so great, but that is a problem with pathing and AI not animations.

But as far as I can tell no game dev studio has animations implemented flawlessly. I've seen problems in Assassins Creed. Mass Effect, and a few other games.
So as far as anyone can say, Skyrim could have the best animations of any game.

Ok I'll agree that Skyrim's animations aren't better than Mass Effect 2's. However, replaying Mass Effect just a few minutes ago (I haven't touched the game for months) I must say that Skyrim's animations are on par (if not slightly better) with Mass Effect 2's; because of this, I still can't understand your reasoning for bashing Skyrim's animations if you say that Mass Effect 1 and 2 had acceptable animations but Skyrim doesn't.

Could have, maybe, but from what we've seen so far, if they don't improve on them it definitely won't.

With the size of the game world and the varied terrain it's understandable that they won't be the best as there are limitations, but they could definitely do a lot better. First person still looks as though your character has no feet and is simply floating around.

:yes:.......plus, wasn't he a freaking Nord..?

Most other games, you can only talk to NPC's in specific places. In Skyrim you can stop an NPC at any point in their day, wherever they are and have a conversation with them/fight them. I'd say in this respect Skyrim is leagues better than most games. Same goes for fighting. Most other games the enemies are scripted to behave a certain way in one particular area. In Skyrim they don't want that. They are going the route of creating a world and being able to place their NPC's, enemies, anywhere and have them react intelligently to the environment. Now this way is the harder route to take, but you know what, one of these days in a future title they're finally going to get it perfect, or near perfect and it's going to be mind blowing. Say I'm happy with the direction they're taking, it's not as smooth, but it's logical for the type of open world's they create.

Very well put, very well put. :thumbsup:

The only things that really looked off to me were the dual wield finisher, and that they still sort of slide across the ground during some movement animations.

Animations and graphics? Couldn't care less about those.

The animations were fine, the sliding thief was a bit weird but I think that was just something they haven't fixed yet... But animation wise it was perfect, much better then Oblivion and Fallout 3, it flows better the both games... Really though, the animations are like most games out of the market...

This is important to consider. If I watch the Battlefield 3 trailer just before the Skyrim footage, it makes Skyrim look terrible by comparison. They're entirely different games though, and you can't really expect an RPG to stay on par with a next-gen shooter.

Well the jumping animation should be a lot better now. Reiner tweeted and said, "I jumped a bunch. Looked good. Felt good."

What? I thought some of the animations look better than current gen stuff. Not to mention it looks better than the Gamebryo era engine stuff.

You just admitted to everyone you're just here to complain about something you won't buy. I guess you've nothing better to occupy your time with, its kinda pathetic.

Exactly he's here to prove that he has atained some sort of higher intelect because he noticed a few ticks in the animation on what is likely to be the most detailed open world video game to date. And no you can not compare it to crysis or any other linier or partial open world game and by doing so you have proven that you yourself have next to no idea how game development and computer resource managment works.

You come off sounding chidish, and while you seem to have a decent vocabulary you spit out logical phalacy lile you get points for it.

If you stop waving your fist in the air, find games that are technologicaly comparable and watch a few minutes of video yhen you would realize the amount of progress being made and while theres still a long way to go its far from taking anything away from the game.

There seems to have been an improvement - however big or small can be debated by you guys - and I'm content with what I saw.

Herp derp animations svck har har! In the end, you will buy the game and will enjoy it tremendously. That's all that matters.

There are a few things which looked slighlty quirky, but for the most part you are so delusional. It's a huge improvement over Oblivion and even Fallout3, both which won game of the year. I doubt a game that has the worst anims in the industry would be winning awards. Besides they are in late alpha which means there is time to polish a few things up.

I think the animations are actually a lot better, but the problem is still the combat and that it is just sort of swinging your sword and the NPCs don't really react and how the larger creatures like mammoths don't really have the ability to crush you, which in real life they totally would, that or send you flying. Although I did notice the dragons don't breath when they are perched, which really svcks as it looks totally tacky them just standing there absolutely still and as for the guy picking up the log, I couldn't get over how unrealistic and stupid that looked to notice the good animation, like what is that, balsa wood?

Why don't you stop your dumb [censored]ing and making ridiculous assumptions. The animations in this game are bad compared to other games and are only superior to the games of this franchise.

No matter how much dirt you people throw against the OP or make laughable excuses, This game lacks good animations. Look out the [censored] window for a change and start noticing that not everything is all positive and sunshine. Could you not care less about animations then what the hell are you doing in here? If you think these animations are comparable or even superior then most games out there, then you need to go play something and come back later.

Even if Skyrim has far superior animations then its previous installments...it still lacks. And it hurts to still see enemies move with the grace of a puppet and moving around like they are somehow always indecisive about how to stand their ground. Its no game breaker but immersion breaker combat wise for not just but one. Its just disappointing to see such a great game take so much leapes forward but also several leapes backwards. If you don't agree then fine but don't go making stupid assumptions and false claims

No, the animations are very good. There are a few rough seams, but overall, it looks fantastic. And you say leaps backward? How in tarnation can the animations be worse than Oblivion?

Beth was always more concentrated on monsters and environment than the player character. I guess it was futile to hope that they'll make animations for player look good. I bet the walking animation is although the same for female characters *cringe*