oblivion had realy crap wildlife. why were there carbon copy fantasy monsters randomly paroling the world? why were real world animals thrown in for no particular reason? morrowind had fantastic wildlife because it was all unique (cliff racers wouldent have been so bad if not for their insane number) all of the made up monsters are supposed to be evolutionarily correct (as in- they dont have large impracticable features that would make them unable to thrive in real life, although i may have described them in such a way where they may sound over the top)


first off- the only real world animals in skyrim should be....
wolves
bears
dogs
boars
falcons/hawks/kites/eagles
tiny birds like sparrows
small fish
crabs
rats
deer
rabbits
should we have squirrels?
should we have platypus?
should we have buffalo?



mythical animals should include...

water...

slaughterfish
seals with arms (more underwater variety)
mudcrabs
some other forms of crustacian (nothing very large)
dreugh (water variety only)
strange whales (throw some extra fins on it?)
strange sharks
strange squid (perhaps the tentacles could come out both the top and the bottom of the creature)
epic turtles :turtle: they could be made epic with antennae (like ants). can you imagine turtles with antennae?


land....

dinosaur sheep
snow leopard like beasts that are very wide and may or may not have faces like bulldogs
something that fights like a scorpion but is in fact- not a scorpion
something that has the rough shape of the half life 2 (ep2) hunter ( http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eDqhw04BjWc/hqdefault.jpg )
something similar to a headcrab (ever played half life? well you should have- what kind of hardcoe gamer are you)

its hard to think of land animals without going over the top, please expand this bit


air.....

(if akaviri invades) wyverns http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:dbNEIitET3xUqM:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_r_nuiF06sA8/RphR8CWPtWI/AAAAAAAAAUg/fvZMxi74SQ0/s1600/Wyvern_400.jpg&t=1 or http://images.wikia.com/monsterhunter/images/6/68/Rathian.png (if no akaviri then it probably wouldent fit)
cliff racers, although very different to morrowind in behaviour


behaviour
animals, should be as dynamic as people in this game, they should hunt,feed, fight each other.
- predator animals should only attack when hungry
- animals should either fight or run when threatened
- most predator animals should pick the easiest target
- some animals should move in groups, others should go solo
- animals should eat what they kill/find
- some animals can call for help. but no psychic ability's ok.
- some animals should sleep at different times
- animals should be afraid of some things
- animals should be protective of their young
- animals may have burrows
-aggressive and hungry animals in the sky should often not be able to spot the player, especially when the player is in thick cover such as trees)


firstly, monsters should not be wandering around outside anywhere near as much as oblivion. natural wildlife however do
animals should scale nowhere near as much as oblivion. weak players should be encouraged to stay by roads or not travel so much at dusk/dawn/ night depending on the area.
animals such as wolves that overwelm the player or strong animals like some of the ones i made up should give of warnings like an aggressive howl in the distance followed by epic music that tells the player to run like [censored] (this should wake you up sometimes when you sleep in the woods)

(and to combat going outside of the border, rather than the invisible walls we all hate- a very large amount of animals may come for you)

The Stalker series' A-Life system accomplished a good portion of what you desire, some Oblivion mods did a portion of it. Anyway, yeah, it'd be nice to see wildlife interact more believably.

Dinosaur sized sheep.. In the mountains? epic.

But I agree to a 100% and even more to hwat you said the animals should behave as and do. Lets hope bethesda takes time to think this through.

I agree with what you said, and some of your creature ideas are good too.

New Vegas already has better animal behaviour, many creatures that always attacked you when in sight in Fallout 3 now only attack you when you attack them or get to close, that's so much more realistic and fun.

by dinosaur, i meant this

http://dinozaury.wartowiedziec.pl/fckfiles/Image/Ankylosaurus1.jpg

make it **** a sheep

Should be a bit like the wildlife in Norway:

Lynx
Wolverines
Raindeers
Badgers
Boars
Wolves
Brown bear
Goats
Sheep
Moose
Elk
Deer
Artic fox
Red fox
Eagles, hawks, crows, seaguls

Could also add: Raccoon Dog, Polar bear, European Pine Marten, Vipera berus(the only viper that lives in Norway), Lemmus lemmus/Norwegian lemming.

Some of these animals would only be able to survive in the warmest parts of Skyrim though, while others only live in the mountain areas etc.

As for sea animals i dont know, but at least seels and walrus. Also perhaps pinguins, killerwhales,whales, crabs or fantasy animals inspired by these.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Capercaillie :tongue:

I voted for http://starzaki.eu.org/~littlemaggot/blog/JediSquirrles_E982/JediSquirrels_thumb.jpg also.

Ya I hardly saw any deer in Oblivion n than again that is ALL i saw when it came to wildlife-___-

Passive wildlife. And lots of it.
Many different kinds of birds and fishes, and many more other kinds of passive animals.

I would love to see great white sharks. Just imagine walking down to the coastline for the first time to admire the sea view, then suddenly you see a huge dorsal fin break the surface of the water.

Epic...turtles?

Well, in fairness, Oblivion also had trees and human beings, so you'd expect other lifeforms such as you find on Earth. I thought the deer, boar, wolves and mountain lions were all superbly done. Perhaps there weren't quite enough of them, but I'd like it to feel like you actually have to put effort into hunting in Skyrim - the world shouldn't be swarming with large mammals that are afraid of humans.

I like your suggestions of other real-life animals. But I'd like the game to keep to real-life animals and a few fantasy creatures from popular mythology rather than inventing bizarre creatures out of thin-air. Morrowind was amazing for it's time and I enjoyed it, but the wildlife was a little underdone in my opinion (sparse, barren landscape, which probably reflected graphics constraints as much as lore).

Localized variety would be awesome too. So maybe black and brown bears are mixed throughout the north, but polar bears are fixed to the southern mountainous colder regions.
But please, loose the stupid name stuff (epic, strange), lol
Epic turtles? Wtf? What's wrong with normal ones. Rats too btw.
Would also love to see animals that hive through seasons, like bears taking a long nap.
And animal in different pelts depending on season, like rabbits.

For sea and lakes, yeah I want appropriate monsters for the environment (no Kraken in a small pond ), but also fitting neutral wildlife that I may kill for food or alchemy purposes.

Love and fully agree on the behavior stuff. So yeah, I guess I agree pretty much fully for a change But keep it sensible, with normal animals. I wouldn't mind a couple of mutated strange animals, but I don't want to go wtf every time I see something new.

More wildlife and a few more domesticated critters as well. Personally, if I find a slab of beef in the game, it would be nice to see an occasional cow and maybe see milk as well as cheese. I just get tired of beer, ale, mead and wine for breakfast. If there are chickens, I also want eggs. And I guess if I find fruit, I want to see fruit trees.

And if not, I'll just go back to pretending some of these items were imported from other provinces as fruit trees may not do well in the cold climate (and possibly short growing season) of Skyrim.

I'd like to see more varied wildlife throughout the game, but also be less aggressive. For example, a major reason you didnt see boars for a big part of the game was that they were too high/low for your level, so too dangerous/not dangerous enough. How about boars don't attack you unless you get way too close? Just have them wandering around, if only for scenery. Maybe hunt them down if you think you can take them. Same goes for bears. And if all that wildlife is there regardless of what level you are, I'd also like to see regionalized wildlife.

I don't think any of those creatures are appropriate for Skyrim, save the cliffracers.

Yeah you know what's really creepy though?? That guy that tells you about the star bottle caps came up to me near that area with a bunch of radscorpions and ants, and when he left, he walked across the area, walked over to a fire ant, and it looked like he was talking with it/giving it something. O.O
Yeah but fallout new vegas has improved on the wildlife.

I find real life creatures in RPGs extremely boring, so I'm hoping for as many mysterious, fantasy, twisted and strange creatures as possible

I'd like to see regional variation of creatures. In other words, creatures should look slightly different (fur color/pattern, size of creature, other cosmetic differences) depending on what region they live in. I.e. subspecies. Wolf Subspecies was a good TESIV mod that I used.

Norwegian lemming
http://www.fjellrev-finnmark.uit.no/Bilder/lemen2.JPG
They are often quite common in the mountains in Norway.

http://bloggfiler.no/confessional.blogg.no/images/435156-11-1284564809515.jpg

It cannot be possible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99X8WDQWAKg

I want plenty of were beasts to kill.

And vapor vampires to slay.

Also a Boars with crazy branching tusks. Babirusas like.