Being a Dragon

[Raella33]

Okay, so obviously people want some way to fly around as a Dragon, be it making Dragons a playable race (not practical whatsoever btw), flying around on the back of a dragon or turning into via Shout or something. All that and the work that will go into making that possible aside, there is one thing I have been thinking of and no matter how I wrap my head around it, I can't come up with a plausible answer.

You're outside of Whiterun, and you go into console and type "tcl". Then, you walk above the city from the outside mind you, and you see: Since Whiterun (and other major cities) is its own cell, from the outside most nothing is loaded save what you might see from walking around outside. Which is fine, unless you are actively flying around it as a dragon. I feel that it would break the immersion completely.

Again, no matter how hard I think, I can come up with solutions to integrate being/flying on a dragon, but this has me stumped.

Opinions/Thoughts?

 

EDIT: I'm not entirely sure about where this belongs, but I am not requesting a mod or trying to troubleshoot one. Just theorizing here.

Edited December 20, 2011 by Raella33

[Sunnie]

Well, seeing that the design never intended to have the player flying around as a dragon (or anything else for that matter), there's no reason they would have added entire cities to the worldspace. The cities as they are, in their own cells, take a lot or resources and adding them to the worldspace all in one relatively small area on top of all the worldspace thats loaded would spell disaster for all but the better current gaming rigs. I've been quiet about this but since I am commenting now I'll just say that I think playing the game as a dragon or other animal is a completely dumb idea, for a long list of reasons. If you want to play that way just for the lulz, then fine, just don't try and justify it in lore or try to twist everything in the story and environment around to justify becoming the Great Dane Thane of Haafingar, or the Chicken Thane of The Reach. :facepalm: Again, just my opinion, don't shoot me in the knee with an arrow!

[Roltak]

Well there was the Open City Mod for Oblivion so I bet sooner or later something similiar will come out for Skyrim .. if it is possible naturally and I doubt that many computer would be able to do that with a playable performance. But yes I bet there are many other places where looking at it from above will ruin the experience but on the other hand if you are a dragon you will most likely fly high above so the low poly models they have in place for some of those places might be enough ... except naturally for starting and landing.

[flyingblind]

If you can turn into a dragon it should be like a real dragon. If you change inside a town or near a guard then you get attacked like a dragon. I would think it would be more like a replacement for using a horse. Exit city to some distance and change, then fly close to the destination and land,, change back and continue the journey

[Raella33]

Well, seeing that the design never intended to have the player flying around as a dragon (or anything else for that matter), there's no reason they would have added entire cities to the worldspace. The cities as they are, in their own cells, take a lot or resources and adding them to the worldspace all in one relatively small area on top of all the worldspace thats loaded would spell disaster for all but the better current gaming rigs. I've been quiet about this but since I am commenting now I'll just say that I think playing the game as a dragon or other animal is a completely dumb idea, for a long list of reasons. If you want to play that way just for the lulz, then fine, just don't try and justify it in lore or try to twist everything in the story and environment around to justify becoming the Great Dane Thane of Haafingar, or the Chicken Thane of The Reach. :facepalm: Again, just my opinion, don't shoot me in the knee with an arrow!

Whether it is a dumb idea is completely irrelevant to my question. It was not a question of should we, but rather one of how can we. I wasn't suggesting making the entire city as it was when in the cell, as you'd be a Dragon and unable to interact with most of it anyway. Just a way to make it look more immerse is all I was wondering.

 

Well there was the Open City Mod for Oblivion so I bet sooner or later something similiar will come out for Skyrim .. if it is possible naturally and I doubt that many computer would be able to do that with a playable performance. But yes I bet there are many other places where looking at it from above will ruin the experience but on the other hand if you are a dragon you will most likely fly high above so the low poly models they have in place for some of those places might be enough ... except naturally for starting and landing.

This is a viable option, however that could cause problems not in terms of performance (well it would, but I have no concern about that), but wouldn't random AI be able to enter cities and screw things up? As I said above, just a way to add a little more detail to the inside of cities so they don't look bland. As you said you could just fly up high, but you might not always be thousands of feet in the air.

 

If you can turn into a dragon it should be like a real dragon. If you change inside a town or near a guard then you get attacked like a dragon. I would think it would be more like a replacement for using a horse. Exit city to some distance and change, then fly close to the destination and land,, change back and continue the journey

The actual "being a dragon" mechanic is not being discussed here. Just the situation I mentioned in my first post. Arrow to the knee, sir!

[brucethemoose]

I see the city loading problem already, but once you're IN the city, there's another problem.

 

-Goto Markarth

-Open the console with ~

-type player.setrace dragonrace

 

 

Size is a wee bit of a problem... dragons already have a hard time landing in mountainous areas (using dragonrend near some daedric shrines makes dragons land off-screen). But they simply cant navigate in Cities.

 

But as for the cell loading problem, I'm sure you could make a mod that would render cities outside the door. It would carry a pretty heavy performance penalty though.

[jimhsu]

I see the city loading problem already, but once you're IN the city, there's another problem.

 

-Goto Markarth

-Open the console with ~

-type player.setrace dragonrace

 

 

Size is a wee bit of a problem... dragons already have a hard time landing in mountainous areas (using dragonrend near some daedric shrines makes dragons land off-screen). But they simply cant navigate in Cities.

 

But as for the cell loading problem, I'm sure you could make a mod that would render cities outside the door. It would carry a pretty heavy performance penalty though.

 

As far as performance, it depends on your particular CPU/GPU setup. So far I've found that Open Cities (for Oblivion) is more CPU intensive than GPU intensive, except when you're getting a view of the entire city at one point (i.e. on a tower). But they seemed to have made several performance improvements in Skyrim, so we shall see.

 

That and I think any reasonably decent dragon mod would probably make some new animations. The existing animations are designed for open terrain and hence banking angles, etc are not sufficient for any reasonable navigation in cities. Can probably be fixed, at the cost of aerodynamic realism (see flight mods in Oblivion for example).

Edited December 21, 2011 by jimhsu

[brucethemoose]

But they seemed to have made several performance improvements in Skyrim, so we shall see.

 

That's debatable. I already have to turn down shadow quality is Skyrim, otherwise my CPU stays maxed and things get choppy. My 3.9ghz Phenom II x4, 6850 crossfire setup is no slouch either, and I don't want a mod that I need a big i5 for.

 

Still, an open city shouldn't be that hard. In theory, it's just a few more cells to load. Big towns like Markarth and Whiterun don't have complicated surroundings, and smaller cities are nearly as simple as Riverwood. Solitude would be the biggest obstacle.

[jackalhead]

If your computer can handle it, an open cities mod sounds like a plausible solution for this flaw. But yes, without that being a dragon would seem a little strange every time you flew over / past a city.

[PaladinRider]

Well, seeing that the design never intended to have the player flying around as a dragon (or anything else for that matter), there's no reason they would have added entire cities to the worldspace. The cities as they are, in their own cells, take a lot or resources and adding them to the worldspace all in one relatively small area on top of all the worldspace thats loaded would spell disaster for all but the better current gaming rigs. I've been quiet about this but since I am commenting now I'll just say that I think playing the game as a dragon or other animal is a completely dumb idea, for a long list of reasons. If you want to play that way just for the lulz, then fine, just don't try and justify it in lore or try to twist everything in the story and environment around to justify becoming the Great Dane Thane of Haafingar, or the Chicken Thane of The Reach. :facepalm: Again, just my opinion, don't shoot me in the knee with an arrow!

 

I agree.. I don't know what it is with these people begging for it. As soon as it is done we'll only have to deal with the people who can't find the mod via search in the forums, instead of the constant requests for it.

 

Back on topic, as many have said - no doubt an open cities mod will be along and will solve the problem