Thing is....what do the Dragons need cults for? The dragons dont rely on 'em, ya sure there can be crazy Alduin cult that try and kill you, but that doest mean that there deaths would impact the dragons at all, heck what are a few cultists to the eater of worlds? If there was a cult I doubt the dragons/Alduin wouldn't even care/know about 'em.

No minions only themselves, oh and you will be fighting a total of 60 dragons I think GI said on one of their articles

Source where they said that? I'm pretty sure they didn't.

Seeing as how dragons each give you a individual dragon shout and there is supposed to be quite a few dragon shouts, the vast majority will not be random. Will a few be? Yeah sure.



They don't need cults, we do.

Alduin does not need anything. You are not looking at this correctly. Adding a cult/minions/footsoldiers to the game would be so us as the players have something to engross us in the main storyline more and make us feel like we dealing blows to the dragon invasion force.

As I said, Alduin doesn't "need" anything. If he wanted I'm sure he could just charge up his super breath and destroy the entire region of Skyrim in a few breaths, but you know why he doesn't?

Because it wouldn't make a very good video game.

yes but the things is , even if we fought these cultists, We WOULDNT be dealing a blow to the dragons or 'invasion' force a all, you know why? Because th arn't part of the invasion force, they are just a bunch of hokerr who worship Alduin, doesnt mean the dragons consider them their soldiers or anything, they would see them as just more mortals to roast.

Also...




actually they did, am just to tired (seeing as Im running on 3 hours of sleep and 6 cups o' coffee) to look it up, I'm sure someone will provide the link soon. But I assure you that they said this like, I'm 110% sure

It doesn't matter if the dragons/Alduin don't care about the dragon cult, you think the Daedra cared about the Mythic Dawn? No, they were just pawns. Just as most cults are in Elder Scrolls, I'm sure the dragon cult would be too. Does that mean we aren't hurting the dragons when we kill off their cult? No, because we are.

Think about if we killed off the Mythic Dawn cult before Oblivion happened. The emperor would have never been murdered and Oblivion would have never been opened.

Will the dragons just see their cult as mortals to roast? Yes they will, but I assure you they will be the last ones that do.




I just googled it and found a forum post saying Game Informer said something along those lines (Which I remember) which said "Dragons will show up in random battles and be a threat throughout the entire game, not just the main storyline" but that is far from them only being random encounters as you suggested.

Pretty sure the lesser dragons work for Alduin. You are the Dragonborn, the ONLY person in the world who can take them on. They really don't need minions besides more dragons.

Would you not agree that it would get boring and that slaying dragons would get a little old if they were the ONLY enemies we fight in the main quest besides humans during the civil war part?

No we arnt hurting the dragons at all. They wont know the difference between a cult that reveres them and a normal person. In oblivion, Dagon needed the mythic dawn to start his invasion and to enter Tamriel. Do the dragons need the cult, no. You assume that, since they are a cult to the dragons that they are the dragons pawns and all this nonsense like the mythic dawn. Just because there is a cult of something doesnt mean that whatever they are worshiping even acknowledges there existents or they are its pawns. For example, I can create a cult worshiping a giant wolf monster, just because I praise it and revere it, doesnt mean if I die I will hamper or in-danger its efforts at anything.

listen to the gameinformer podcast where tehy interviewed Todd Howard, nuff said

actually, there are going to be good dragons that have made a pact with alduin not to join the comming war and in return, they are granted peace.
little do they know, that alduin has gone and stolen their eggs, and used dark magic on them, which spawn half dragon, half men creatures, which will be named 'draconians'.
/end dragonlance rip off xD

@Switch296

Most of your argument seems to rely on the idea that without lots of fighting, the MQ won't be all that interesting or grand. The thing is, Bethesda might disagree - they might have other ideas on how to create an interesting and grand MQ which doesn't rely on you killing stuff every quest.

Uhhh, I've listened to the entire thing mate and I also have a transcript of the entire thing saved on my computer and it can be found here - http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/299182-todd-howard-gi-interview-transcript/

The only thing they mention about random encounters and dragons is the following which is as I said twice before in this thread, is nothing like what you suggested.

"They can get on the ground and march around now. They can pretty much go anywhere. So we can call them and do random encounters. When they come, they generally now just work. We can throw multiples of them in a scene. They just, you know you just... like... when I get bored in the game I just summon dragons now and they can terrorize the town. It's always cool."

Unless you are willing to state your official source about dragons being mainly random encounters then I'm sorry but your information is incorrect and misleading.





If they can do that, sort of like they did in Morrowind, I think it would be absolutely great.

I honestly don't see the new generation loving that though, with all their Call of Duties and constant action games.. They need to be killing something every 5 minutes or they get bored and play something else.

I believe what we're going to see is, due to the civil war, that the player is going to have to navigate a fine political line, and perhaps end the war, or at least get a temporary truce, in order to unify everyone against the threat. So BOTH sides are potential threats to the player, although I think there (of course) has to be something else working directly with the dragons. Perhaps an end of times cult similar to the Mythic Dawn. Maybe Dragons have access to undead warriors.

A lot of people around here believe that, but I don't really buy it.... There are lots of successful games which don't revolve around in-your-face action.

I agree that Bethesda aren't likely to fill up the MQ with lots of "go talk to this guy and listen to ten minutes of dialogue so you can learn the lore". But there's also the option of more variety than just fighting and killing - investigate this, retrieve that, rescue her, persuade him, etc. And those sorts of quests need not be slow or dull or unrewarding.

You got it wrong, OP, it's the dragons who are the foot soldiers. Alduin is the big bad.

And, well, every religion in Tamriel, save for the Hist, Nords, dunmer, and Redguards. Have fun oh saints of the Nine! Your version of Akatosh is the only goody goody there is, all the others desire to see Mundus removed, and, well, ol' Aky is wanting to remove it now. And mer, Auri-el was never on your side. Sorry, but you were completely wrong in everything.

Chaos shall step in to rid this beast, carve up his body, forge our weapons from his bones, create new and exciting diseases for Nurgle, and offer his blood and skull to Khorne. This is our world to defile!

SOURCE: Game Informer Issue #214, Page 57, Far Right, Last Paragraph

"Dragons won't be some legendary concept left dangling before players until the end of the game. Dragons are real and regular threats in the game world. They fly into battle at unexpected times. They ravage towns."

Sorry, it doesn't actually use the word "random". Guess it's not perfect enough for you. Seiously, stop your [censored], pretty much everything in the Skyrim forums is speculation. We take what we know and tack stuff on. Get over it.

Who are you replying to, and why are you so aggressive?

I don't see anyone complaining in this thread.

It just doesn't make sense for dragons to be the only enemies that we'd fight. Its obvious there's going to be plenty more, probably what I described on page 2.

Did you read this thread at all? Obviously not because I already answered the "Dragons are foot soldiers" statement. I said that I realize this but that does not mean there is no reason for the dragons to have minions/foot soldiers, (my god I've had to repeat this like 5 times now in this thread because you guys keep posts that seem to have indicated you have skipped reading the thread) because of the many reasons I've already said.




Yet again, please read the entire thread before making a post! I already posted that I had read the game informer article and that it says nothing like what that guy was suggesting, which it wasn't.

What that guy was saying was that dragons will be mainly if not completely RANDOM ENCOUNTERS and will not have any real place in the main quest, go back and read it please before telling me to "get over it" after you have quoted some completely unrelated information to the discussion we are having. The game informer quote you just posted says nothing like what he was saying.

Wow, so hostile. And let me ask you, how does your quote say they're not Alduin's foot soldiers? They're coming in, making a mess, eat everyone, and laugh at you as they leave. They're not going to be some rare event.

And what the hell are you trying to say? They're not the big bad, they're the big bad's minions! So what if they have no real place in the MQ, they're still minions of [NUMMIT] Alduin! Are you trying to say they're just random monsters that come in and kill?

And [NUMMIT], I've already said anyone whose part of the Nine and Merish religions are already Alduin's [NUMMIT]s.

Orzon, I was replying to Switch 296. I was kind of aggressive because I didn't read all of his posts. Overall, he seems to be getting at the same point I was, I just think he misinterpreted me. I was in the middle of editing that post when you ninja'd me. Sorry.

Anyhow, Switch, you seem to be under the impression that I said they're all random encounters. That's not it at all. There might be a quest where you go to a dragon's lair to kill it, or save a town from one. In the GI cover story, it suggests that an encounter with a dragon near the beginning of the game is when you find out you're dragonborn. Alduin will almost certainly be scripted in. But I seriously doubt most of them will have that limitation. A dragon isn't a gate to Oblivion, they're not stationary. They move, they destroy things, they hunt. And I never said anything about them being the only enemies. I figure there is going to be a hokerr cult that the dragons don't give a care about, they just won't matter a whole lot. It'll be a little quest. Who knows, maybe you'll even get to see a dragon kill them for giggles. I'm just not under the impression that anything other than the dragons and the war are going to matter a whole lot.

Also, I don't think you get words of thu'um from killing a dragon, I think you get them from ruins scattered around. It seems to me dragon's souls are like the nodes in Dead Space. GI said, "By absorbing the souls of the dragons you slay, your capability to learn new shouts grows." They make it sound like dragons souls are basically research points.

Edit: I got double ninja'd while typing this. You guys are fast, man. Again, you've misinterpreted me. What I said was more or less exactly what he said: dragons are mainly going to be random encounters. You can't just go to a map marker and find one. Also, what I quoted was right on topic. (Of the argument, that is, not the OP.) This has gotten out of hand, so, again, I'm sorry.

I do not mean to come off as hostile, I just find it extremely irritating when I have to answer the same questions 2-5 times in one thread and quote myself because people don't take a few minutes to read the entire discussion before joining in. I apologize if I offended you.

Here is the quote I was talking about.



That is why I'm asking what foot soldiers are going to be in. Bethesda isn't going to chuck 5 dragons at us every quest in the main storyline, it would get old very, very fast.

Okay, I'm iterating what you said. [NUMMIT]! Stop exploding because someone didn't say exactly what you said.

Well you didn't say "all" but you said most, which is what I was saying is wrong.



I can promise you that while dragons will be active in the game world and will be involved in all sorts of quests, main storyline and other, along with a few random encounters, most of them will be scripted. The ones involved in quests? Scripted. The ones active in the game world? Scripted to fly around certain areas and scripted to do certain things.

As I said, there will be random encounter dragons but will the majority of them be random? No, they won't, they will be scripted.



But really guys, this thread has just become a big argument about silly stuff so we can we please drop this and continue the discussion on whether the dragons are going to have some sort of foot soldier/cult and why they should or shouldn't have so and how the main quest will play out if there is no foot soldiers for filler combat between dragons?

That would be great

maybe the dragons work alone