You know, I don't believe the original poster was trying to flame anyone. No one deserves personal attacks for expressing a legitimate point of view about the game.
This isn't addressed to anyone in particular; but every time there's a disapointment expressed about Skyrim, the poster is labled as a whiner.

I don't call Skyrim boosters 'apologists' or 'sophists'. Why would I? You love Skyrim. Bethesda made a great action adventure game. Many of us miss the features that added to role playing. Making a infantile caricature of those missing features does not address the issue- that of choices being removed from the Elder Scrolls that the player used to have.


I think the majority of persons in the forum like Skyrim very much. Those with criticisms are departing. That's too bad. I hope Bethesda hears what they have to say. I don't know if it will matter, but they bought the game, and this is a forum for fans to meet and express ideas and experiences.

The games I personally own are made by Bethesda.

What does have decent expressions? L.A. Noire? Enslaved? Oblivion had, well, expressions of sorts, and your character's head looked at things, that is true. Never mind, though, all we need is a 'character idle butt scratching animation' mod, and all is well with the world again.

Ok, here's my take on the subject. This is just my person opinion, but I'm glad that head turning feature is gone. It annoyed me in oblivion. Alot. why? Well, for example (without giving away too much of the story for those who may not have played it), upon first arriving at cloud ruler temple with a certain important individual, this individual gives a speech. During this speech if I had my character standing anywhere near the group of people listening to this speech, all the NPCs would turn and look at me. I wasnt the one talking, but everyone would be looking at me instead. Just one example of a realistic feature that broke the realism.

Another example that affected (effected? Don't know, o well) my actual character turning his head would be if I were playing in third person (which I rarely do) and I was standing next to, say, my horse but my attention was being drawn to a pretty scenic view of the sun setting, but my character is staring at my horse. That bugged the crap out of me.

So, as I said before I'm glad it's gone, but this is only my personal opinion and I'm in no way trying to cause an more commotion than there already is over this topic. I understand the OPs point and respect their opinion, but I just simply don't agree.

Bethesda have stripped down the game from a lot of things. I cannot tell you why they have done it, but it looks like a "spring cleaning". Some things are now being missed, others should have gone a long time ago and are now gone, and some things that you do not need are still in there. What these are is different for almost everyone. Should the game however be a giant collection of every idea?

A clean-up does have advantages. It lets Bethesda see who is interested in what feature and what can get dropped or replaced by better ideas. It is the hard way of finding out, but it is not the worst. And, if you consider that the game can be modded then what has been lost really? Modders have now more room to put their ideas in.

If these animations were worth the programming effort will some modder pick them up and put them back in. I did not notice they were gone. Shows how much I care about them...

You know, I don't believe the original poster was trying to flame anyone. No one deserves personal attacks for expressing a legitimate point of view about the game.
This isn't addressed to anyone in particular; but every time there's a disapointment expressed about Skyrim, the poster is labled as a whiner.

I don't call Skyrim boosters 'apologists' or 'sophists'. Why would I? You love Skyrim. Bethesda made a great action adventure game. Many of us miss the features that added to role playing. Making a infantile caricature of those missing features does not address the issue- that of choices being removed from the Elder Scrolls that the player used to have.


I think the majority of persons in the forum like Skyrim very much. Those with criticisms are departing. That's too bad. I hope Bethesda hears what they have to say. I don't know if it will matter, but they bought the game, and this is a forum for fans to meet and express ideas and experiences.

The games I personally own are made by Bethesda.

That is true and very well expressed. Thank you.


I understand your point of view, and I appreciate that you explained your reasons.

(I still want the face-tracking feature back, though.)

I think the face should track the Crosshair, instead of merely look to arbitrary items.

I wouldn't smile if my land is attacked by Dragons. Also you are the Dragonborn the people have to smile at you but you have to keep your coolness. What would they think if the Dragonborn looks at them http://www.hd-gbpics.de/gbbilder/mr-bean/002.jpg?!

I guess I must be shallow because I like 3rd person when I am playing a female character, which I always do. It's all about the eye candy!

I agree with you, for this reason I don't really miss it.


That would be the best solution. I would love it.

I wouldn't smile if my land is attacked by Dragons.

More jokes, but again, no real reasons.

What about modules with completely different stories? I know people that like to make mods featuring, for instance, fairy-talesque scenarios (I'm not allowed to put screenshots).

Right, I initially put the example of the smiling expression, but keep in mind that that is one facial expression between many others.

Besides, Skyrim's setting isn't my only concern, but its game engine.


A new (or an existing but unused one) scripting parameter for the "face tracking" feature could avoid most if not all of the mentioned problems. For instance, at the aforementioned "cloud temple discourse" in Oblivion (the example of Follower of Kyne, at post #53), such parameter could direct the heads of all the NPCs towards the actual orator NPC instead of you.

Making face tracking togglable in the options menu would be another option, if it becomes boring, unsuitable or whatever.

I think the face should track the Crosshair, instead of merely look to arbitrary items.

Yes, that could be one of the possible answers. There are different ways of handling the "face tracking" feature and the camera in third person.

But we don't know if this is even possible to implement to this game engine, even with the help of the Creation Kit.

I really miss this feature myself. I don't remember anyone ever complaining about it,

Wow some people in here need a hug!

I'm also dissapointed the stars don't twinkle anymore.

What would they think if the Dragonborn looks at them http://www.hd-gbpics.de/gbbilder/mr-bean/002.jpg?!

* * *

Many of us miss the features that added to role playing. Making a infantile caricature of those missing features does not address the issue- that of choices being removed from the Elder Scrolls that the player used to have.

I think you nailed the answer, why bother making the NPCs look like they have emotion or care when the story doesn't reflect that. May as well look like a zombie if they act like a zombie.

Removing things that don't work well is an awful approach. Why not fix things? As bad as the expressiveness of characters was in Oblivion, it's worse in Skyrim. That's all the OP is saying and I agree. It's too bad the head turn is gone. Small detail, but leaps out at you if you play in third person.

I think everyone jumping all over the OP is just bored and wants to pick internet fights. It's a sad world.

That speech minigame was just abominable. I hated it in the very essence of the word. Telling a joke and then threatening to kill him makes him like you better? Logic?
I oh so much prefer the current system - that is the lack of it.

To be honest I didn't notice any of this was even missing till I read this topic. I wouldn't be opposed to Bethesda adding in better expressions at some point, but in my opinion this is a pretty minor issues.

Anyway that is off-topic, since the points raised in this thread aren't about that.

Or at least, I'm not talking about that speech minigame at all.

Skyrim has the same implementation as Fallout 3/NV, except it was somewhat too easy and the requirements are hidden, so it appeared like there is nothing. In Fallout the skills are directly added by the player and he decides how good of a talker his avatar/character is. In Skyrim, you can't actually choose to become a good speaker. You just sell stuff and slowly accumulate speech levels.

A possible improvement would be to make the result dependent on speech and one other skill related to the topic. For example, to convince the guards you are a cook, could succeed when you have a combined total greater than 80 between speech and alchemy. Either you are really work at speech, by training with trainers so you can pass all the challeages easily, or you actually have knowledge to the relevant subject which automatic makes you better at convincing people.

so if someone doesn't agree with you is trying to pick a fight? how convenient...
well, guess what, you have your opinion and I have mine, and for me Skyrim is twice as better than Oblivion but a worse RPG than Daggerfall and Morrowind.
those two didn't have any facial expressions but they were great games, so I don't feel that feature is needed much, sue me

Well i didn't found anything to change the Head tracking for the player. I tried to add the line from the Fallout ini to the Skyrim ini without result, so i checked the CK and there was an option "Uses Head Track Anims" but it doesn't affect the Player. So i think it must be something hard coded.

Yeah, I wish my Skyrim character would smile more like my avatar. http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/10/101304/1667981-creepy_smile_super.jpg rules!

http://www.tweakguides.com/images/Oblivion_16b.jpg were awesome as well. I really miss them.

Head tracking in Oblivion was wonderfully creepy. I loved how my character would follow the progress of a passing dog with a disturbing smile on her face before her snapped back into forward position like a rubber band.

I wish our character would at least do some idle animations now and then, I mean the animations are already programmed into the game. Like say, our character crossing their arms, putting their hands on their sides, stuff like that while we talked to people...instead of just sorta staring ahead like a zombie.

This I agree with. Skyrim characters and NPCs seem to have regressed back to the Morrowind days when they all just stood around like zombies with blank expressions on their faces. There was a pretty neat personality mod for PC Oblivion that added in a bunch of animations for NPCs/Characters so I'm hoping some talented animation modder will carry the baton over to Skyrim and bring some of the little touches back into the game world. You know, immersion and all that.

Maybe this is just what our Characters are. And they just don't telled us.


As far as i know we aren't able to make custom animations, because we don't have the tools for it.