If you haven't heard of them, the Donner Party was a group of settlers in the 1800s who were migrating west to California from Illinois. After attempting to take a shortcut through the Great Salt Desert in Utah, they got trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains after a heavy blizzard. In order to survive, they had to resort to cannibalism. (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ceO0gtlJ4 amazing documentary for more info)


I'd like to see extreme weather like blizzards in Skyrim. These blizzards would not be pansy, toothless graphical effects...they would be tangible and seriously dangerous gameplay mechanic associated with them. These blizzards would be so severe and dangerous that they would force you to find shelter in caves or other structures. There, shivering in your shelter, you might run low on supplies and have to kill your companion/companions for their supplies or food...the storms might even force you to have to eat your companions.

Lol that's so weird - I had a dream last night that was a bit Donner party-esque... o_O

Voted yes for blizzards, but not necessarily leading to cannibalism. Although maybe it could be a perk or something like in fallout? I'm not sure.

Go on...

lol, i though this thread was going to be an invitation to a doner kebab skyrim party, where we would all gather on launch day and eat kebabs while playing skyrim all night...

We weren't traveling, just stuck in a house (because of zombies) and we ended up eating someone to survive. I remember wondering what was the point of avoiding zombification if you were just going to end up eating each other anyway lol.

Now that I think about it, not a lot like the Donner Party, just the eating people bit. :/

Cute Bosmer lady ask why she has to wait for a storm to eat bandits. :angel:
She thinks they have strange customs in Skyrim.

I'm all for gameplay affecting blizzards, although I don't know how I feel about cannibalism. Anywhere, here are some ideas to make blizzards dangerous ingame.

When a blizzard occurs, you cannot use the map to fast-travel elsewhere. This roots you in your current location until the blizzard is over. You cannot just press T and wait until it's over; if we want to portray it realistically, standing in the middle of a blizzard waiting for it to die down is foolish and equates to death. These two little limitations encourage you to do two things: try and find some natural shelter (e.g. a cave or overhang), where you can wait out the storm (or sleep it if there's a bed to be found there), or if not set up a portable encampment from your inventory which has a tent with a bedroll. You may also sleep/wait out the blizzard inside the tent. If you neither have a tent nor can find natural shelter, your only option is to slowly make your way downhill, trying to get to a lower altitude at which the blizzard is not so potent.

Before many start moaning about the gameplay limiting aspects of such an interesting mechanic, I'd suggest that this be included but optional, probably in a hardcoe mode, so as to sate the appetites of some of us for real roleplaying

That sounds really cool - I agree it probably should be in a hardcoe/survival mode though. I can imagine lot of people wouldn't like it, and I think these kind of weather effects potentially harming the PC would be a great way to develop it beyond what we had in NV.

Blizzards are a cool idea, but what if you had some food on you? Cannibalism seems a bit far, more likely you'd try hunting deer or something.

Don't bosmer eat people after they have killed them anyway?

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The game cannot physically FORCE you to eat your companions. Just make you get lost and if we're having food needs (which I doubt) you'll get hungry from going too long without food. It's not the blizzard that does it. It's the lack of nutrition for an extended period.

the only thing a blizzard should do, IMO, is drain your stamina, make you move slower, severely reduce visibility (i guess it goes without saying), maybe some animations like covering your face and thats it

I think weather should have effects on your character, like making bow-shots and magic spells innacurate, or making you unable to use your map. Or hell, it could even make you stagger and fall over. But I thing the cannibalism is a step too far...