Then we fight dragons they will come either overfly and attack, or crash down on us, our response would mostly be to wave our sword towards it

Basically correct but far less cinematic as we did not reload 50 times to get it right

I think the fight with the dragon wasn't scripted and that it's all dynamic gameplay. However the scenes from that fight they used to create the official trailer are probably the best few parts of the entire battle. The actual fight will probably be less epic, but those epic parts that we got to see will still be in it though.

Just toggle bullet time and you can make pretty much any shot

This. :biggrin:

Maybe people think it might not be actual gameplay footage because Bethesda hasn't told us what gameplay looks like yet. We've seen little half second clips of first person combat so far and nothing else, so we really can't say 100% for or against the fact that the dragon fight was gameplay footage.

Being overly aggressive and typing in all caps doesn't prove your point, either, so chill out.

But no one wanted to believe... believe they even existed. And when the truth finally dawns. It dawns in FIRE!

(The truth by the way is that dragon fights will be epic, unscripted, and will never get old. Unless dragons are just boring and uncreative, then perhaps.)

I don't see the dragon fights being anywhere near as dynamic as people are hoping. I know they made a whole new engine, and I see that they've got a whole 6 guys that worked for 2 years on the dragons...but in the end I look at all the Bethesda developed games I've played (Daggerfall, Morrowind/Blood Moon/Tribunal, Oblivion, Fallout 3) and quickly realize I've never had a encounter than is even 1/5th as complex. I like much of what Bethesda does, but one thing I've never liked is the lack of emotion or gravitas at big moments in their games. I've pretty much always felt they fall very flat at what should be epic moments (and yet excell at the very benign phases of their games).

That said, I'm personally hoping these parts are scripted. I just don't think in game dragon fights will pan out as exciting or frightening or immersive; I think it more likely that they'll be wonky, with inadequate control methods, an dragon that clips through buildings/trees, and other curious bugs.

And I know people will read this and think "HATER". If that's what you see in this post, whatever, I'll live. But really I'm just honestly sharing what I expect from a game that I still intend to buy and expect to greatly enjoy. Dynamic in-engine dragon fights are something that I imagine more action oriented developers to pull off well. I've not played Assassin's Creed, but the animation I've see looks smooth enough that I've more confidence they could pull this off. TES has never been smooth and it's controls never tight and realistic. Then again who knows maybe those 6 guys working for 2 years will pull it off, I've just go reservations over it all.

@Smber2c

I see what your saying, but with a new engine, longer development time, larger development team, more resource, etc, i think they get something at least close to what we saw in the trailer. Also, Todd has stated that they like to reinvent there games, not stick to the same formula, so there past works are only a base for the kinds of thing there doing in skyrim.

Definitely.
In engine perhaps, but scripted.

The dragon fights may get old, but I'm still positive that it's actual gameplay. Albiet it's probably scripted in the sense that it was a well choregraphed dragon fight, but I'm positive it's using the real in-game animations.

From what I have read Todd does indeed say that dragon fights in the game are unscripted, but he doesn't say anything about the dragon fight in the trailer being unscripted.

Also I would actually prefer it if the dragons didn't fly over my head begging to be gutted in the stomach. It seems entirely stupid for the dragon to do that. I would much rather have a dragon battle in Skyrim resemble the dragon battles in Dragon Age: Origins. The dragons in that game were freaking epic!

I have to say, I do somewhat agree with you about the fact that Bethesda games end up being less exciting and stylistic in the big moments in both combat and story. However, I do also believe improvements were made in Oblivion, and I already see greatness in Skyrim's combat with the introduction of more realistic melee combat and the all important factor of unique finishing moves. Those 2 features will propel the TES combat "slash, block, repeat" method into a whole new dimension. Sure I agree, I would love if Bethesda could take some cues from modern action games, specifically Assassins Creed, for the combat system in TES. I have and love all those games and the perfection of the action gameplay and combat is like no other melee game I've seen. Aside from that alone, I'd actually enjoy seeing improvements on horses, clothing, and character animation (perhaps cutscenes....) in Skyrim and future TES games that are easy to build from examples in AC.

As it stands, I'm not worried. I know the trailer was a perfect combo of choreographed/scripted gameplay and actual gameplay with special camera angles. They did well with it, and I can tell if they can produce anything close to that experience (obviously it will be in first person), then I will be fairly impressed with the game's combat.

who cares if its not real combat or only a trailer the dragons are not scripted so thay have free range of movement u will never kno what there next move is
:obliviongate:

In one of the tweets, they did actually say "the dragon fights actually go down like that" or something very similar. I'm not saying all the video was gameplay, but I think the dragon fight was (besides he camera angles).

On the nose. Basically.

I'm positive that what it was was one of the developers fighting a dragon, then they took a saved demo file and replayed it to position camera angles. It's gameplay and those are the true models and animations, but what you were seeing was choregraphed. it's gameplay, but it's choreographed gameplay. I doubt they made a bunch of fake models and animations just for that scene, but that said they probably did fight the dragon in a way to make it appear as epic as possible..

Can someone give me the source of one of the devs saying it's all gameplay? i remember them saying its was all in-game but not gameplay, though i have not been keeping up so well with skyrim the past few weeks. By in-game, i think they just mean it is an in-game cut-scene, like in bioshock at the main menu if you idle long enough you get a trailer, which is all in-game, but not alot you can actually do, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmw78t8NgIE, look familiar?

EDIT: though a lot of it is gameplay, just some parts i think are just in-game cut-scenes.

No it isn't. That's a scripted scene if I ever saw one. The animation is far too fluid to be an actual person behind that.

Its just cut well, there seems to just be more animations so you can contextual fight things indifferent places without the wavy sword spam. Dude above rewatch it and notice how the attacks are cut at just the right angels so 'no' contact can be seen they just have animations for different directional attacks... The guy stops quickly from sprinting and puts a hand out to balance, game mech not scripted, guy gets blasted go's down, gets back up while using dragon shout, game mech not scripted. Guy strikes dragon contexual to head and underside, game mech, not scripted. The magnetism we've heard of wether on or off shows how the game tracks the nearest enemy or the one in LOS and changes our animation depending on how they are possitioned not rokkit science. Just sign of the time.

I think I have a MUCH better chance of liking the game, if I don't watch trailers. With all the ideas shown that get nixed before the final release, and all the creative editing, trailers just end up raising expectations higher than what the actual game can deliver. I won't be watching any game movies on this one.

Why move on? If he could lie the first time, it can happen again. The thing is, I believe Todd has lernt his lesson so he is more carefull wha the says this time. As we can see, Skyrim is not promised as Oblivion or Morrowind 2.0 as it was done with Oblivion, so I don't think it will be the same. Also because of what happened before with Oblivion, I am skeptical so I am leary. While I hated Oblivion at first, I do love it now, so I think everything will be ok.

As for the fighting scenes, I don't think we will have the actual Dragon Combat, that had to be scripted othwerwise they were playing over and over and over and over again till they got the right scene. I believe it was said, everything in the game was from the 360 except for the Wall and dragon fighitng scene, where you had the black bars on the top and bottome, so everything that is full screen I believe is in the game, everything that is widescreen, with black bars on top and bottom is scripted.

Because people are sceptical, as they should be. Scepticism is the only reasonable way of thinking without hard evidence in front of you. I'm not saying Bethesda is blatantly lying to us, though they would have reason to I'm choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. You're right, this is 2011 and I've seen very impressive things from video games over the years that I wouldn't have thoguht possible the year before, but I won't be 100% convinced untill I have the game in front of me and I can play it, when I fight my first dragon, then I will make up my mind for good, not before.


Is it though? I've seen smoother animations in games out already, take Assassins Creed 2 or Brotherhood (As they are essentially the same game, don't get me wrong though, I love them both). The animations in those games are amazing, tey flow together well and I have to work at it if I want to create an awkward moment animations wise, it's not perfect but a fight that fluent is certainly possible.

Because if it's real gameplay people have to get more creative when looking to waste bandwidth with whining.

ALTERNATIVELY: People are so afraid of disappointment they don't want to ever hope something is cool before they see definitive proof of it. So they are trying to beat their own enthusiasm down, not anyone else's. I did that back in High School myself.

Show people some gameplay of Dark Messiah that might make them change their mind..... :hubbahubba:

Bethesda has been known to misrepresent its products before. Just because it's in a hype trailer doesn't mean it will function that way in game.

Well, I dont think it will be so cinematic, but obviously it will be in the game.

By the way, people throw the word "scripted" around pretty lightly. Got news for you--everything is scripted--its a video game. What Todd meant is that the encounter is not already pre-determined and set up to work in the same way each time.



And yes, we do have to be skeptical because of what happened with Oblivion, but I hope they realize by now that making stuff up to sell their game isnt a good marketing strategy.