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[burningpet]

  Back to the dragon's lack of Tolkien-ism, and the options you are thinking of, serving and engaging in diplomacy, etc, with them, that is a cool, if somewhat unfeasible, idea. 

 To bring this closer to the core of my issue with this whole thread: Why? Why do they have to be like this? Why must I play a game where I can diplomacy with these creatures? What if some people just don't care about this, and are perfectly fine if dragons are just another predator to have cool fights with?

 It's ultimately a disagreement of styles from what I see. There might be some meat on defending the official lore, but that has been ignored enough to not matter now.

what is this "predator" you all talking about? will there be an ecosystem involving dragons in skyrim? nope. they will be randomly appearing. they are as predatory as a zombie. they attack on sight regardless of personal need, risk or reward.

and to the first question - why? because i find it more interesting, again, this is up to debate and to personal opinion, but i find the whole "dragons as just another predator creature to have cool fights with" a little dumbed down version of dragons.

another view of dragons i could "agree" on would be that of a megabeast in DF, rare, randomly appearing but having the ability to wipe out cities. but this will never happen in skyrim.

[Duke 2.0]

 DF megabeasts are exactly what you criticize the dragons of being. Randomly appearing, no reason for them to do what they do, no place in the ecosystem. They also do as much damage as the Skyrim dragons, which are reported as being able to damage structures and local economies. Depending on how you play it off the skyrim dragons are more engaging than DF megabeasts.

 The word predator applies to the ideal behind the creature. Not a mystical intelligent civilization willing to interact with other species, but a monster to face and look cool while doing so. It doesn't seem that dumbed down as that is pretty much how they are always portrayed. There are variations with over-ambitious fantasy writers but they are exceptions that don't particularly interest me. You raised the point of opinions here so I can't really go that far down this path myself either.

[burningpet]

I am willing to bet the dragons in skyrim will have minimal to no impact on the world, i will be more than happy to be wrong though.
the reference to DF megabeasts is more on the impact on the game, seeing how one can completely destroy your fort.

This is not how they were always portrayed, on the contrary, this is how, to use your own words, the deviant art pictures describe them. but the question of origin is not an issue. it is a question of preference and opinion.

[Asehujiko]

Bethesda games had fire ants, fire scorpions, fire bees and fire bears.

Why exactly should fire lizards be treated any differently?

Myths and legends? Well I saw nobody raise a stink about chariot being simple tier 3 cavalry sidegrades in age of empires despite their supposed ability to drive back an army actively supported by a divine entity.

[Urist Mcinternetuser]

I too wished the dragons were rarer (but really really tough). But whatever, it's cool.

[chaoticag]

Dragons are overrated. Maybe killing them ought to feel differently than killing anything else, but if you throw enough hitpoints and damage on anything, it can redefine the way you play the game. And if you don't like it, then there is the tools created to make the game, simply put in the effort and make a mod where you can climb over the dragon and stab it's weakpoint, or move it to be closer to some sort of Beowulfian-Tolkenesque, or whatever it is you want. Sure, it'd take a lot of work, but so does anything you really want.

[Virtz]

Bethesda games had fire ants, fire scorpions, fire bees and fire bears.

Why exactly should fire lizards be treated any differently?

Myths and legends? Well I saw nobody raise a stink about chariot being simple tier 3 cavalry sidegrades in age of empires despite their supposed ability to drive back an army actively supported by a divine entity.

They're centering the game around the concept of dragons even more than Dragon Age. You're the dragon-born. The central theme of the story is supposed to be that the dragons are back in Tamriel. You run around killing dragons and sucking up their powers or something. You'd think they'd be really special compared to everything else.

And on the subject, I think I recall some Bethesda developer stating that fighting humanoids is the most interesting type of combat in Skyrim. Like despite the "awesome" factor of dragons, they're just somewhere between wild animals and humanoids in terms of interesting and varied combat? It just makes me worried that they'll really be the new cliff racers. Except elemental like pokemon.

Dragons are overrated. Maybe killing them ought to feel differently than killing anything else, but if you throw enough hitpoints and damage on anything, it can redefine the way you play the game. And if you don't like it, then there is the tools created to make the game, simply put in the effort and make a mod where you can climb over the dragon and stab it's weakpoint, or move it to be closer to some sort of Beowulfian-Tolkenesque, or whatever it is you want. Sure, it'd take a lot of work, but so does anything you really want.

No. They don't give you the tools to do that. Maybe like 2 years later someone might do that with a script extendender. But I really don't think they'd give you anything close to an actual engine SDK.

[chaoticag]

Even then, the tools they release allows for a step up on the mechanics of the thing. You can still remove dragons from the wild, or maybe bargain with them, and if you're fairly creative, you can pull off part of your ideas with it.

I think a shadow of the colossus style fight with a dragon would be a bad idea though. It's a different style of gameplay entirely. What were people expecting anyway? Running to the end of a cave and having a chat with dragons? I mean, as is, the elder scrolls haven't been tokenesque, so why start now? And then, if you want to go with ancient dragon lore, and attack it's heart to kill it? Under the impenetrable carapace harder than any known material known to man? That doesn't make good gameplay. At best, it's a quicktime event.

[Virtz]

Even then, the tools they release allows for a step up on the mechanics of the thing. You can still remove dragons from the wild, or maybe bargain with them, and if you're fairly creative, you can pull off part of your ideas with it.

I think a shadow of the colossus style fight with a dragon would be a bad idea though. It's a different style of gameplay entirely. What were people expecting anyway? Running to the end of a cave and having a chat with dragons? I mean, as is, the elder scrolls haven't been tokenesque, so why start now? And then, if you want to go with ancient dragon lore, and attack it's heart to kill it? Under the impenetrable carapace harder than any known material known to man? That doesn't make good gameplay. At best, it's a quicktime event.

Daggerfall featured a skill that allowed speaking dragonish (used to speak to dragonlings, or rather to keep them non-hostile in actual gameplay). So if there's a dragonish language in TES lore, then it wouldn't be a stretch at all to be able to speak to dragons.

Also, just because something is made from a harder material doesn't mean it can't be pierced by a weaker material. Heavy crossbows would be really useful right about now, I guess.

Although I can certainly get behind the idea of modding out the generic dragons once they get boring and more annoying than interesting.

[burningpet]

Even then, the tools they release allows for a step up on the mechanics of the thing. You can still remove dragons from the wild, or maybe bargain with them, and if you're fairly creative, you can pull off part of your ideas with it.

I think a shadow of the colossus style fight with a dragon would be a bad idea though. It's a different style of gameplay entirely. What were people expecting anyway? Running to the end of a cave and having a chat with dragons? I mean, as is, the elder scrolls haven't been tokenesque, so why start now? And then, if you want to go with ancient dragon lore, and attack it's heart to kill it? Under the impenetrable carapace harder than any known material known to man? That doesn't make good gameplay. At best, it's a quicktime event.

Shadow of the colossus was a reference of approach, i was not talking about copying its mechanics.
and i love how you decided what makes a good gameplay. objectively. even though shadow of the colossus is a very successful game.

there are many ways to take sotc or tolkien approach and translate it to the TES style world/gameplay. limited only by the developers imagination.

regarding modding, well, i might just do that.

[chaoticag]

I never said shadow of the collosus was a bad game, or had bad gameplay,but I'm stating that an action RPG should not have elements of an adventure game for one, and only one type of encounter.

[Leatra]

Since you are going to fight every dragon the same way, it will get repetitive after you kill some.

And if I know Bethesda, you will be able to kill a dragon without much struggle when you are just level 1.

So, there is no need to get excited just because there is going to be dragons. Skyrim is simply being overhyped. Surely the most over-hyped game of the year.

[Moogie]

Eh, whatever. Mods will fix this.

[Vattic]

Oh come on, these things are supposed to be able to attack ANYTHING in the game, just like any wild animal.  The thing that separates these from ordinary wild animals is that they fly and are super-awesomely strong.  They can attack the strongest city or stronghold or whatever in the entire game, and chances are, without the player's or some high level character's help, the dragon could win.

I thought it was confirmed that the cities would have loading screens at their entrances? If so I really wonder how they'll keep continuity.

There are variations with over-ambitious fantasy writers but they are exceptions that don't particularly interest me.

Those and some of the oldest known stories about dragons. More modern fantasy authors have often reduced dragons rather than the opposite.

I still think there might be dragons which we get to talk with. Only having dragons as random encounters would be kind of missing an opportunity. They should at least show up in the main quest.

[Virtz]

Oh come on, these things are supposed to be able to attack ANYTHING in the game, just like any wild animal.  The thing that separates these from ordinary wild animals is that they fly and are super-awesomely strong.  They can attack the strongest city or stronghold or whatever in the entire game, and chances are, without the player's or some high level character's help, the dragon could win.

I thought it was confirmed that the cities would have loading screens at their entrances? If so I really wonder how they'll keep continuity.

Haven't you heard? The guards said they closed the city gates so that dragons can't get in. Makes perfect sense.