Your probably right... And that's the problem, rather then add something that should be standard fare by now they'll instead leave it out and rely on the modding community to add it into the game. That's great and all for a PC player like me, but if you play it on Xbox or Playstation your just screwed.

As for it not being a big deal, that's completely subjective, just like it's my subjective view that it IS important... So whose right? The difference is whereas you are apathetic towards it one way or the other I actually deem it a mark of quality in immersion for the player.

Agreeing on this completely. And in my subjective view, it is important. In my objective view, I can see it as a gameplay element too.

The one that allows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg-4tMB32Us?
I gave up this sort of madness with GTA San Andreas. BGS games are not this bad, which also makes them less smooth.
But no thanks, 1st person or GTFO

i just recently found a mod for this in oblivion, if you're interested http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=20891

as for the actual deal... i do not care if i can see my legs in this game, but i can almost promise you that your wish will be granted, the new engine has got so much physics in it that the game almost wouldn't work without the legs actually being there in first person mode (the legs aren't there in oblivion) also good programmers and game developers like details they aim to make a better game after all!

Logic fail

Actually I remember the first time I saw it. Hitman and it rocked. It adds to immersion which by bethesda's own words is what these games are all about. Your bottom line is actually just the start.

@Rabcor: Thanks, I may take a look at it later. Sounded quite buggy though form the lines I read.

This might be a bit off topic but I want beth to leave third-person in the dust and focus on making improvements on first-person. I hated using your sword in oblivion in first person, it felt like you were waving your sword around in front of you randomly, not slashing.

Because it makes you feel more like you are seeing the action through the eyes of a humanoid creature than a flying transparent blob that hovers in the air and doesn't cast a shadow.

It's not something people are never going to see,and it's not something hard to do either.
The fact that you can see your legs doesn't just add to immersion but also helps you to get your jumps better if you want to jump.
I discovered that while playing the original Crysis.
[img]http://img142.imageshack.us/i/crysis2008090720170979pv4.jpg[/img]
There was a place where you had to jump from rock to rock to climb up a waterfall,and you could make accurate jumps by watching your legs and pressing the jump button the last moment.
Since TES are games that let you jump,and there are some times we will have to jump, except from that being an immersive eye candy,it will also helps us do more accurate jumps.

But it's not hard to do that,at least with some decent tools.
I did a mod to change the hands and legs you see at Crysis (1) and it took me 2 days,and I'm an amateur modder.
I guess if they want it,it something they can do at anytime.
So there is not so much for you to fear that they will waste so much time to something "people never will see".
Actually if full body awareness was once valuable at Crysis,it will be 10 times more valuable at a game like TES.
Because Nomad's legs would always be the same since he always wearing his nanosuit.
But in TES where you can change your clothes,I think most people every time they put new pants on their character would just spend minutes watching them in 1st person.
And in Skyrim where hits by weapons do viewable damage,it would be even better to look down to see if your legs are full of scratches or blood!
:spotted owl:

Brilliant

When I look down, I can see my whole body..

Indeed. I remember in Doom 3 I saw my reflection in a mirror. It's almost depressing how much I was amazed by it, it's just so rare in first person games.

Yeah,it's bad.
And thinking that this was something Duke Nukem 3d had back in 1996,makes me wonder even more why it isn't already a standard 15 years later.
[img]http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1/14906/734463-duke3d_2007_12_29_11_49_30_96_super.png[/img]
:shrug:

I don't see why not. How hard is it to put a pair of legs below you? I highly doubt that Bethesda would leave out something so simple though. It's not like they can claim tech limitations. Just look at the gameplay!

I think the real problem is quite simple:

The player, in first person, has no BODY at all. You're a collision box. And that's not much fun, when you suddenly shatter the fourth wall and realize that. Your character, for all of the design you put into it, is a COLLISION box.

When you pop out into third person, sure... you can see the character... but the game doesn't register it any differently. It's a collision box.

Only you get the benefit of knowing that that character is you. To the game, it's just a shape... and the only thing that matters is the collision box.


My hope is that, in Skyrim, your body isn't just a collision box... but a mass in space, with a distinct body-shape and weight and mass that moves through the game. I want a shadow. I want a reflection. I want feet, and shoulders, and a chest. I want a head... and to see through EYES, not a camera.

If they can pull that off, then I'll be satisfied...

If they can't... I'll just keep on dreaming, until someone does.

go to third person view.....??

Implementing it would not be very hard to do, really, but it's the sort of thing you would do early on, not this late in development.

I remember when I first saw it, too. Dark Messiah, and it felt great. Not to mention, there were a couple times it was played through great effect... one instance being http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxcqD74QM8U&t=92. The first time I saw that, it really drove that scene home and gave me the shivers. If it was done in third person, or simply implying what happened instead of showing, it wouldn't have had nearly as good an effect.

Also getting knocked onto your back-side, and seeing your legs on the ground in front of you, really helps connect you to the world through your character. It's something you may not pay much mind to when actually playing, but it's a glaring ommission when it's gone. It's one of those "if you're not focusing on it, we're doing our job right" deals.

It is a shame that it has become more or less standard procedure to leave out legs. I feel it is now at the point where a lot of game devs don't even think of it anymore .

Exactly my feelings! There's really nothing that makes you feel like you're in a game than experiencing it from the eyes of the character. Stumbling, falling, when you jump and see you barely made it on a ledge, looking down (like IRL) and seeing what you're wearing... Dark Messiah may have been short but the immersion it provided in that time was grand.

Okay, first off, I want to say that I have wanted the ability of seeing my own legs for a LONG time. I don't really see why so many people are against immersion on an rpg forum, but Im sure you have your reasons. For me, when I played far cry 2 I was really hooked on all the hype of it being as realistic as possible. So the minute you get out of the damn truck and recover from malaria, do you know what the first thing I did was? I looked straight down, and became deeply saddened. I knew then the game was not what I had expected. Now, as for the people arguing it would take too much resources to add and would make the game glitch and so forth, I'd like to show you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaBcX4o4OjM clip from an old xbox game. A game that came out in 2004. Note the reflection of your character, how it follows your movement and your attacks. If this game found a way to do it Im sure BGS could give it a try.

" M'aiq has heard that many years ago people couldn't see their legs, M'aiq was there he knows this to be true "

I'm not schizophrenic.

...this suggests that it was standard procedure in the past, and the lack of legs is a new thing. Rather than "showing legs" being the new feature that it is. (I guess it depends on the time frame you're talking about. If you look at the last 25 years of FPS, "legs" is a pretty new feature.)




I'm sure it's different for each person, but several possibilities....

1) they've never truly been "immersed" in a game, so the demands for "better immersion" seem like...... nothing, really?

2) they have a hard time even defining the term, since different people seem to talk about it in different ways

3) they've been playing first person games so long (or have enough imagination) that "viewpoint + forearms" doesn't even register as a problem, so the "I need legs to know I'm not just a camera!" thing just confuses them


I'm probably some combination of those. The whole "the lack of legs reminds me I'm playing a game" thing seems odd to me, because I've always known I'm playing a game. I think the only times I've ever been "totally focused" on any game would be in the sensory-overload portions of shooters or action games, and that's not "immersion" it's just needing all your focus on the action or you'll lose. And, like I mentioned in 3, I've never had any issues with thinking I'm just a camera. If I pick a funky modded player model in Unreal Tournament, that's what I'm walking around as, even if I can't see it.