I want to fight a dragon WITH A SPEAR...

I'd probably give them up for any number of things. Guaranteed polearms, in-game-explained Fast Travel rather than Oblivion's "magic autopilot walking mode" type, or a dozen other things I could name off the top of my head.

See, there hasn't been a numbered "main series" Elder Scrolls game yet where I didn't ultimately spend far more time playing "freeform" while ignoring the main quest as much as possible, and dragons pretty much are the main quest- so it's perfectly within reason for me to expect I'll deal with them for maybe 3 playthroughs, then all but completely ignore them for over a dozen more so...what would I really be giving up, hmm? :shrug:

Because spears are probably the most important, prolific, and useful weapons in human history. Not having spears is like not having helmets. I mean, it seems ridiculous to not include them, but there's other types of armor, right?

Mounted combat is also a huge part of historical combat and fantasy. The domestication of horses allowed man to travel farther than he ever had before, and the use of them in battle allowed whoever had the most of them to win, and create empires based on their use.

And people are really focusing on dragons as the plot element. Pretend for a second there is no main quest, and each dragon is just a dungeon. That flies. And breaths fire, or w/e they do in Skyrim. The game would not collapse without them. It's just a personal choice. Frankly, I believe every single other video game already has the villain-hero thing. TES is about doing whatever you want. So taking out dragons in Skyrim is not equivalent to removing say, the Covenant from Halo, or Russia from Call of Duty.

"Hey, did you just pick my pockets?"

"Er, no... of course not."

"I think you did. I'm going to call the guards!"

"Er, well (points to the sky) DISTRACTION!"

(dragon flies by breathing fire, victim screams and gets under cover while player moves to help repel the dragon).

XD

Anyone else think tho that the dragons attacking cities will be scripted? I mean they say it is random but normally don't dragons like destroy villages? soooooo what would we never be able to see our house again or go visit the village that got attacked because they have to rebuild it? I can see alot of things going wrong with this if it truly is as random as Todd says

It's random in the sense that you don't begin a quest, but I really doubt that they will attack cities while you are not present. I think it's more likely that you enter the city and there is a 1/x chance that a dragon attack will take place (x being a decently high number).

I agree with this fine fellow.

The MQ also just has to do with the theme of the game, even if you aren't playing it. Oblivion is this idyllic fantasy capital that is then invaded by evil demonic daedra. That is a big part of the game's flavour (paradise invaded), even if you aren't playing the game. The amount of time you spend on the main quest isn't the only issue. Not to mention, it is definitely a selling point and one that the devs can't give up.

But we can't really pretend there's no main quest. Some manpower needs to be devoted to what's important to the MQ.

They don't pay nine guys for two years to create something they will only use once.

@ topic.... I'd give up the dragons for...
Melee combat based on 'Die by the Sword'; updated and improved for modern hardware. I'd even buy a wii if they supported the wii-mote or something like it.

... uhm... I just really wouldn't like that.

***Also (as an aside)... As far as I'm aware, the only distinguishing difference between a 'AAA' product and a non 'AAA' product is the amount of money spent on advertising the product. :shrug:

i like this post, actually has some good points.
oblivion seemed too goal orientated, and not enough 'do what ever you want'

i think bethesda should focus on doing what ever you want more than questing
perhaps they are worried about sales?
if that is the case, then they shouldnt, i mean look at mine craft. it has no purpose what so ever, yet it has made the guy a millionaire and its not even finished.

imo, TES should be the AAA version of minecraft (not literally), in the way that in minecraft, the enjoyment comes from creating your own stories.
that should be one of TES's mottos - We dont make the game for you to enjoy. you play the game to make your self enjoy it.

I do that most of the time I'm playing TES. It's one of the few (if not only) games where you can. I didn't start the Morrowind MQ til I was level 30+, and never finished it. There was a bug, which bothered me at first, and then I just did some missions for other guilds.



You think they'll recycle dragons from TES V in TES VI?

They paid folks to make up banks and credit, and they only used those once. They paid folks to create a skill, animations, and actual spears, and they only used those once. I could go on.

They will use the systems for other things, almost certainly, yes.


They paid nine guys for two years?

yes i know you would be more than likly present but what I am saying is dragons i morden lore have it where they break [censored] and cause havoc so what happens when it looks stupid when the dragon doesnt destroy a house or five? I mean thats what they do so than how is BETH gonna fix it when they destroy lets say a chapel or a shop you can go into and than it is burnt to the ground, is it gonna be like that the whole game or what?

Sorry, I wasn't clear - I had different sort of pretending in mind. Of course you can roleplay your character as though the MQ doesn't matter to you. What I meant was that it's unrealistic to suppose that the people who worked on an important aspect of the MQ could instead work on spears, mounted combat, etc. and we'd get a similar quality game - there'd be a big interesting quest arc missing.

Look, I kinda get what you're going for here - it seems like there's been a lot of effort put into animating dragons and how they interact with the world. And perhaps Bethesda could have created just as interesting a main quest just by using the resources the rest of the game has without dragons. Sure, they'd still need to write the dialogue, and put in the NPCs, design the quests, etc. etc. But I think what you're saying is that dragons have been a whole bunch of work even on top of that, and that time could have been spent doing spears, werewolves, mounted combat, etc.

I would go as far as to say the people they paid to create those still work there now (the animators at least, I know the lead animator was Todd Howard's best friend).

As opposed to nothing. I didn't comment on that. I do of course think that 1 is too few but that has absolutely nothing to do with my statement.

I would say that comparing dungeons and creature mechanics is like apples and oranges though. And besides we don't have any idea how many people are working on dungeons this time around so it's not really relevant. For all we know there are 30 people in five man teams fleshing out the entirety of each major region. Since it's speculative it's moot.

This.

All that other stuff is mundane and trivial to DRAGONS.

Not to mention that the only value of spears in the first place would be to fight DRAGONS. And it's not a major loss that we've lost spears to fighting DRAGONS, because now that means we need to use our bows, our swords and our magicka against these really awesome DRAGONS.

So yes, DRAGONS are better.

And in case you didn't get the point sooner:

DRAGONS DRAGONS DRAGONS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think most of us would go that far; but my original post implied that a company won't pay nine salaries for two years to get something they do not plan to keep for future use ~these folks designed a creature controller. They will use it again ~doesn't matter if they don't use it with a dragon mesh again. :shrug:

Give up dragons?!? I will say good day to you sir!!

So in other words, you're saying that they could possibly never use dragons again, but just use the technology again? That's the exact opposite of what you posted earlier, though I agree with you.

How exactly?

---

Edit: I should clarify my first post here where I said I'd give up dragons for "Die by the Sword" derived melee combat... I'd give up dragons and most the rest of the game for that; I'd settle for just the arena, and a few opponents.

I would much rather pole-arms alone than dragons. I'm playing Two Worlds II right now and its really fun using a giant halberd to mow things down.

I always used them in Morrowind and I always used a staff in Daggerfall.

I would give up dragons for: Levitation potions and mark/recall spells.