After watching the cinematic for the Nth time i had a thought come to me that when killing a dragon might be like closing oblivion gates.

In oblivion you could close a maximum of 60 Oblivion gates. We might see a similar cap to the number of dragons to fell.

Perhaps you will gain new powers or dragon essence after each Dragon Kill (this might of already been covered).

Any thoughts?

It may be somewhat like closing Oblivion Gates, only it's still fun after doing it 5 times.

Well there has to be a limited number of dragon shouts available...so it would make sense that there are only so many dragons available for killing.

If all the dragons look exactly the same, they will become repetitive after five kills.

This sounds familiar...

To get dragon shouts it is a mixture of collecting the words and killing dragons and I know for a fact that their is a cap on how many shouts you can have. However I do not think there will be a cap on dragons. I also hope that the dragons take skill to find and beat because if they don't we will have more Oblivion gates to close.

It has been confirmed that there are different types of dragons...

This prehistoric document may interest you:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1156463-dragons-are-the-new-oblivion-gates/page__st__100__p__16980711__hl__dragons+new+oblivion+gates__fromsearch__1#entry16980711

That's what I thought too when I read about the dragons being farmed for their souls, but I think they will not be as boring as the Oblivion gates, because:

1) It can't take that long to kill a dragon
2) Unlike the gates, dragons are roaming freely in the game world, which means every encounter may be different because of so many parameters: where the fight takes place, how can you use the environment to defeat the dragon, nearby npcs may be involved, you could have companions for some of the fights, you can have the "luck" to lure more than one dragon in the fight (how cool would be a dragon vs dragon while you're watching ), and most important, the level scaling is changed, so the intensity and difficulty of dragon battles should vary according to your level and gear from very hard to easy, unlike the gates.

the biggest differences are... 1 the way the are encountered 2 how long the encounter takes and 3 progression or no progression

when you cleared oblivion gates, you ended up getting loot, and MAYBE a nice sigil stone that is relevant to your char. and this took up a good bit of time. you didn't get a sense of progression out of the game mechanic tho, not progression you couldn't get from raiding caves or doing other things.

when you kill a dragon (it seems like) you will have quick, unexpected, and violent fights. you will be rewarded with abilities that can't be gained other ways.

seems very different to me.

i also like the possibilty of really dynamic dragon encounters. todd howard has gone out of his way several times to point out how they attack towns. if you were in one of those towns, you natural would fight the beast. then later you could see one in the middle of the wilderness. should be a really cool system.

I just wonder if dragons will be flying around from the get-go, or if their visual existence is part of the MQ where you need to get to some plot point which triggers them to start making appearances. I'm personally hoping for the latter. In OB, I'm so thankful that I didn't start the MQ for over a year because I always got so annoyed when I'd stumble onto a gate.

I guess we'll find out eventually. But my first thought was that dragon encounters sounded exactly like gate encounters. The difference, though, is that closing an oblivion gate was like fixing a leaky pipe. It got annoying and there wasn't any payoff. At least with dragons, there's something to be gained by killing one, so they're something you might actually hope to keep running into. At least that's what I hope my perspective will be when I play it. I don't want to end up thinking, "Oh greeeeaaaaaatt, another dragon. :rolleyes: " I don't think that will be the case, though.

I think the more important question is, "Will they fight the same?" They can look as different as you want, but if they all fight the same, then it will be just as repetitive.

Lol, you go inside the dragon and get out a Kidney stone instead o a Sigil stone.

As cool as it sounds I doubt you can make 2 dragons fight each other.

This.

It was my understanding that after you kill a dragon you use its energy to power your dragon shouts, which you find scattered around Skyrim. In that case, then there probably isn't a cap on dragons, and hopefully killing them doesn't get monotonous.

But that would imply no cap on the power of a shout which there will be.

Agreed.

Instead of being annoyed by them, I could see myself wanting to actively hunt them, all the while exploring the land and finding new areas. In that respect I hope their locations are randomized to some degree. I was disappointed by the end game cookie cutter quest in Oblivion to close the gates. Fast travel to town X, talk to leader Y and close gate right by the town.

pretty sure you collect words from dragons and dungeons and combine them for shouts and different levels of shouts

then shouts must have a large cooldown time.... ?

pretty sure different shouts have different cooldowns.

In Oblivion NPC's or creatures couldn't close Oblivion gates, but even in vanilla Skyrim it's very possible that either a NPC or other creature can kill a dragon or finish the player's hard work. So I don't think they are capped.

good point. i was also just thinking that lore doesn't say that dragons as a race depend on anduin to exist in tamriel or nirn, they were already around before. so hopefully, defeating our scaly antagonist wont stop the dragonfights.

I think dragon are going to be somewhat akin to oblivion gates. My guess is going to be that right from the start they are not going to be around (maybe a few) and then when you hit a point in the MQ they will show up en masse flying around burninating the countryside, in most cases I'm guessing killing them will be optional and similer to closing an oblivion gate, but a few will be requiered to advance the story. And then at the end of the MQ they will all (maybe a few will be left behind considering their nature) go away. So yeah my guess is they are going to be like oblivion gates. Anyway thats just my wild speculation.

Edit: And I do believe they will respawn, but not the quest related ones.

I hope they don't get in the way of exploring. Please. I wouldn't mind if they didn't start showing up until you did a little bit of the MQ.