So on top of jumping onto a rock to kill enemies we can simply hide in forests from dragons? Maybe behind a tree if it spits fire.

Yep. Far Cry 2 had this restore time for trees and such from what I know. But it was hilariously short

What?

Just telling you the facts about how games ACTUALLY work, if you want to believe that every dragon you see in the game is persistent and exists even when you cannot see it, be my guest. If you want to believe dragons are randomly spawned anywhere on the map, again be my guest. :hehe:

I didn't think the dragons would spawn. I thought there were a set number of dragons roaming the game world and it was the encounters that would be "random", not the spawning.

The game could have everything in the world running in the backround when you are not there to witness it to maintain continuity.

:facepalm:
*gets out an 88 to bring down my previous post*

Substitue dragon for tank (or a helicopter), character or NPC's for infantry, bows for RPG's, etc....get the picture? The tactics are the same.

Just because there are dragons that might spawn above or in trees doesn't mean that the fight has to fair, nor does it require (has to be) destructable environments :shrug:

In fact, I'd argue that the only reason there "has to be" destructable environments is because it's become the norm in games (dunno if it has). Therefore, if it wasn't included, the company could lose sales.

Remember, we will be able to call dragons to do our bidding. This implies that they can be summoned from anywhere.

It would clearly be virtually impossible to have a world as complex as the one found in Skyrim running seamlessly in the background. Games have to work within hardware limitations, consoles have a finite amount of RAM and processing power. The truth is, 98% of what your player cannot see in his immediate vicinity, will not be rendered. That includes towns, NPC's, dragons e.t.c that is how it works, if the game was persistent and everything was running in the background even when the player is not there to witness it, lol the developer won't be able to maintain a steady frame rate whatsoever.

maybe if you played games with AI more complex than call of duty you'd know that yeah there are games with persistent AI that does exist when the player isn't around. :hehe:

why are you acting like this is some HIDDEN SECRET i don't get it.

I'm think that since he's tell us how it "ACTUALLY" works he's played it. Or maybe one of the dev's. He can't just be some random nobody that has all the info. :whistling:

I'm not unconvinced that they will be semi-scripted spawn points with predetermined "crash points" for dragons.

Dude it's not rendering the things you can't see. Think about it.

They are still there however, going about their day when you aren't around. Just not physically.

IDK if ten meters squared of Forrest is a bit damaged. I just don't wanna see these amazing looking towns turned to dust.
SEE: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1170191-will-dragons-wipe-out-towns/page__st__20__p__17246747__fromsearch__1#entry17246747

Lets not get angry and personal with each other, I despise Call of Duty. Please stay away from assumption making.

You'd be hard pressed to find a game on consoles were this is the case, you may THINK the A.I is persistent, but rest assured it is not. Once again I am not at fault simply because you cannot tell when a game has persistent A.I or not. You really think that dragons you cannot see, dragons that could be miles away from the players current position are rendered? that is naive beyond belief.

When you're not around, things don't have to happen completely accurately, you can simulate them for a much smaller performance hit. Combat, for example, doesn't need to calculate each hit, but can be a straight comparison of stats, pathfinding doesn't need to happen, only working out the approximate travel time to a destination, so on and so forth. No, the game could not run the whole world at once, but neither does it have to in order to maintain the illusion that it is.

Everything in the game has scripted spawn points. Everything has to Spawn after all.
I'm sure there are a few of what you speak of, especially for the MQ. However, they have stated that the dragons spawn just like the other creatures in the game and will act with their own scripts and AI. Which is not predetermined.

I'm thinking logic is useless here. :sadvaultboy:

That is true, I thought they were talking about having it all fully rendered? if they were not talking about having it rendered, then why was this discussion talking about a dragon finding itself inside a dense forest?

Oh my no, rendering the entire gameworld at once seems... highly inadvisable.

I believe the topic is saying: "If a dragon falls in a forest, and there's someone around to hear it, will the trees not get in the way?"
As in, the dragon comes smashing down, hitting trees on the way - do those trees collapse or not?

I would only want destructible environments if there are also reconstructable environments.

The only games i can think off the would have Persistant A.I is MMOs Because its on the sever. No matter How amazing you think your PC is its not gonna have to power to run the scripts for several thousand NPCs and 30 dragons (that are gonna require a fair bit Scripting). And Besides The vast majority of us will be playing on the consoles which are far under the specs of modern day gaming PCs so it got to be Proximity.

Oh...my bad :blush2:

I thought they were talking about a dragon flying into a dense forest...for example in pursuit of the player. In which case I thought to myself, firstly the dragon would only every spawn at a location the game logic deems desirable, which negates the question.

But now I see what you're actually talking about, then yea, that is confusing. If a dragon were to come crashing down you would need some sort of destruction or else the immersion is quickly lost.



Someone that understands. Even without fully rendering the character, just handling the A.I scripts alone for a world as massive as the one in Skyrim would prove impossible, like I said, rendered or not. The dragons and NPC's will not be a persistent entity, RAM is finite on consoles and actually very very small, you cannot continuously store every movement of a beast that the player cannot even see, a beast miles away in memory, while still hoping to run game logic code, texture filtering, texture streaming, LOD.

Yeah I agree on this one after all.
A very long "restore" timer for destructible environments should do it.

Like in here (it's greatly speed up in the video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHjmYowv8Y

Cool video. Crazy with the pistol though.

I just don't like having a scarred up town and everyone just goes about their day not thinking..."Hey maybe we should rebuild that Mill that got burned down by the dragon...Because we need flour to make bread..to eat?"

Except that Skyrim is happy fairy-land where technology (regular or magical) does not advance. It's medieval fantasy for the save of being medieval fantasy. Please don't act like the game has to be realistic-- for all we know the trees could have been protected by ancient magic, and only specially enchanted axes would cut them.

Dragons spawn at any time and anywhere. This does not mean that they fight you at any time and any where.

Spotting someone in a forest is a lot harder than spotting someone, and then following them as they run through the forest. Why did the dragon not attack in the forest? It would have demonstrated the amazing destructible environments even better than kicking up rocks and dirt on a cliff.

I'm not even saying that the feature is a bad idea, just that the trailer does not tell us enough to determine that trees will be destructible.