I hate when people complain about this, I really do.

TES games should not be about fancy animations. Leave that to the linear action-RPGs out there.

Honestly, if it were upto me, i'd scrap 3rd person altogether and just stick with 1st person - then you don't have to worry at all how real the animation looks as the character moves around.

The more you obsess over how great animations look in 3rd person, the more you run the risk of encroaching on player freedom. Climbing too hard to get right in 3rd person? Scrap it. Levitation looks silly in 3rd person? Scrap it. Running jumping too hard to get right in 3rd person? Restrict it. Player looks ridiculous trying to climb a hill by jumping constantly in 3rd person after we've taken climbing out? Stick an invisible wall up.

Seriously... fancy animations and visuals are nice in some games, but they should NOT be priority in an open-world game like this. Freedom should always take priority. If you're going to nitpick about visuals, go play Fable.

Oh please. They were terrible in Oblivion and Fallout 3 too. Saying they look better than that gets no reward. Perhaps you just don't play any games other than Elder Scolls, but Beths animations are among the worst of the industry.

Oh please. They were terrible in Oblivion and Fallout 3 too. Saying they look better than that gets no reward. Perhaps you just don't play any games other than Elder Scolls, but Beths animations are among the worst of the industry.

I simply don't understand your statement. I think it's BS, it looks fine. People like you simply can't be pleased no matter what, and you expect too much.

yeah... yeah.... some of you guys complained 'animation svck, AI svck, combat animation svck, 3rd person movement svck, water ripples svck, armor merging svck, no-hardcoe mode svck, no fishing svck'

you know what? you'll buy this game, play this game until 500++ hours.

admit it.

Blame Havok more than anything really. Yes Havok for these types of games have potential to be better than something like Euphoria so some of the blame is on BGS.

That said Havok Physics has never impressed me.

Games like Crysis very much apply, as the practical technology for animations is the same regardless of genre. I can name many in which the animations don't drag the immersion down. In fact, naming a worse animated contemporary game would actually be a challenge. As I previously mentioned, Bethesda's animations are among the worst in the industry. That's not hyperbole. Anyway, some game where the animations are either acceptable to good, and don't have a negative impact on the game: L4D/L4D2, Witcher 2 (not amazing, but not terrible), H-L 2 (had good animations and that was 2006?), the Mass Effect games, Unreal 3, Borderlands, Dragon Age 2 (worse graphics, less stiff animations), and I would count Crysis as well.

Third person is not what people are concerned about here. Nobody's even talking about it. Todd spent the entire demo in first person. In fact the third person animations looked pretty good. What's disappointing is that in combat the giant spider and the NPCs slid around in the middle of their animations. It just looks crappy, and could be fixed, as evidenced by the dragons and giants not exhibiting the problem. Hopefully they're still working on them, and that was the same build as E3, because otherwise it will detract from the game.

Also, remember that "I didn't use it so I don't care" isn't a good argument to excuse something being neglected. Remember how some people didn't use spears?

To be honest, they were, back in the day. Morrowind up to Fallout: New Vegas have never had any good animations. Skyrim's look more natural than ever before. It flows well between actions and it looks good. And it doesn't matter if you compare Beth games to others. They are a separate entity altogether.

Why don't you just be happy that progression is being made and major improvements, not just to the animations, but to gameplay as a whole, is being achieved?

If not, maybe you shouldn't be playing TES games, because they are clearly below your prestigious station in gaming quality. Idiot.

As I've said, Bethesda's animations are the worst of the class. Expecting more than the worst from a studio that has an advantaged place in the industry isn't expecting too much. The problem here is that lots of people waiting for Skyrim don't play many other games and don't know how bad these animations really compare. I'd certainly be pleased if they made animations that were a bit more fluid. Who told you otherwise? Ah, I get it. People like you just like to invent claims.



There are people who say the same thing regarding all sorts of games, I see it on forums all the time. I doubt I'll buy Skyrim until it's on sale. I didn't buy Fallout 3 or Oblivion, I think those games were terrible. The last Bethesda product I enjoyed was Bloodmoon.

There are people who say the same thing regarding all sorts of games, I see it on forums all the time. I doubt I'll buy Skyrim until it's on sale. I didn't buy Fallout 3 or Oblivion, I think those games were terrible. The last Bethesda product I enjoyed was Bloodmoon.

Third person is not what people are concerned about here. Nobody's even talking about it. Todd spent the entire demo in first person. In fact the third person animations looked pretty good. What's disappointing is that in combat the giant spider and the NPCs slid around in the middle of their animations. It just looks crappy, and could be fixed, as evidenced by the dragons and giants not exhibiting the problem. Hopefully they're still working on them, and that was the same build as E3, because otherwise it will detract from the game.

Also, remember that "I didn't use it so I don't care" isn't a good argument to excuse something being neglected. Remember how some people didn't use spears?

Games like Crysis very much apply, as the practical technology for animations is the same regardless of genre. I can name many in which the animations don't drag the immersion down. In fact, naming a worse animated contemporary game would actually be a challenge. As I previously mentioned, Bethesda's animations are among the worst in the industry. That's not hyperbole. Anyway, some game where the animations are either acceptable to good, and don't have a negative impact on the game: L4D/L4D2, Witcher 2 (not amazing, but not terrible), H-L 2 (had good animations and that was 2006?), the Mass Effect games, Unreal 3, Borderlands, Dragon Age 2 (worse graphics, less stiff animations), and I would count Crysis as well.

So one of the most immersion-breaking elements of Bethesda games for me have been the animations. They've always been stiff, unnatural and awkward, and it looks like it will be the same again in Skyrim - particularly where humanoid NPCs are concerned. I thought and had hoped that with the joining of Beth and id that they might borrow a better animation system from id, but it doesn't look like it. I think animations are the area where Bethesda are lagging the most.

"Hi, I'm a huge (censored) and I can never seem to appreciate the things that I am given."
You need to grow up and quit trolling Bethesda. They are making you a great game, that will, whether you like it or not, keep you busy for many hours. so QUIT BASHING.

Different games using different engines, that have capabilities in different areas. Yes, Crysis, HL:2, Dragon Age do these things well. But let's be honest here, there are things that they fall down on as well. Bethesda may not have put as much work into the animation system, but they pick up again in so many areas that those other engines are incapable of achieving.

In short, Skyrim's Creation Engine has a completely different set of pros and cons to that of Crysis. To compare them is to compare Chocolate Sponge to Chocolate Eclairs. Both are good and tasty, but they are different in many ways and different people react differently to it.

Now that Skyrim's animations are good, fantastic even, you're willing to condemn them based on every other good-looking game out there. Rather than show praise over major progression and improvement?

It just sounds to me like you have a shallow perception of how games developing works.