"Sacrifices power for range" makes absolutely NO sense at all.

Longbows do more damage but take more time to draw back the arrow.

Shortbows vice versa.

Hide in the shadows and rain down some enchanted, poisoned arrows get those one shot kills..

Arrows in Skyrim weigh 0.

Arrows in Skyrim are more expensive.

Arrows in Skyrim do more damage.

Arrows in Skyrim are much much much faster.

That being said, you will find PLENTY of arrows in this game (mainly lower level ones). So don't be too afraid to use your ammo.

Dont forget, you can re-loot the arrows you shoot. Provided you find them again.

Tip: Enemies in Skyrim have Oblivion's aiming system. In other words, you can strafe sideways and STOP just after he/she/it shoots an arrow at you, and that arrow will miss 95% of the time.

My character will consist of Archery as one of his main skills. That and One-handed, Sneak, Block, and Heavy Armor.

While I enjoy archery and try to use it all the time, a good archer must use sneak for damage bonuses, and a One-handed+Shield build is vital for enemies that don't use ranged weapons and charge at you with their swords. Kiting is hard to do in this game (because you can't back pedal as fast, and.. dungeons...), so you have to focus on melee as well. The perks in heavy armor and sneak make it the armor of choice, especially for the close combat situations archers eventually deal with (those perks remove heavy armor penalties such as Weight, stamina drain and movement noise).

Starting race doesn't matter.

hope this helps

Forgot to add:

The master perk (final perk) in the sneaking tree is incredible for archers. Say you're sneaking, you shoot at an enemy, that enemy detects you. The final perk allows you to un-sneak, then sneak again... your enemy will now go nuts looking for you. I think it's called "Shadow Warrior" or something.

Yeah probably, it was only a guess

I can't really find out any information on what there differences are, but I guess we will find out soon; You're probably right though.

Pure archer is simple:

Archery 16 (all)
Sneak 12 dont take assassins blade, dont need 5/5 stealth if you dont want it
Alchemy 10 up to purity, all perks that affect poisons
Light Armor 10 (all)

thats 48 poits total

well in reality English longbows had a range of 400 yards and short bows had a range of around 275 yards. I'm just wondering but where did you see that there would be longbows and short bows? That would be really cool in my opinion since i prefer longbows.

if the game plays like Duke Patricks Combat Archery mod for oblivion (the mod they based the new archery system off of) then all bows should feel different in power, speed, and range. you'll have to become acustomed to your bows but with time and practice you will be able to anticipate how a new bow will act. here's a few tips.

First shot should always be a stealth shot, that will deal you the most amount of possible damage.

learn to lead. leading is the skill of knowing how to fire in front of a moving target and the arrow striking the target. This will take practice and knowledge of how fast your arrows travel. with the knowledge of how fast your arrows travel you then have to take into account the direction and speed of your target. the goal is for your moving target to be where the arrow will be when their paths meet. this sounds really complicated but with practice it becomes second nature. a good practice technique is to get an animal to run from you and practice on it.

dont run backwards. instead turn and sprint away, if you invest into destruction you can use frost spells or any type of ground rune to throw off your target. some shouts may also be handy.

conserve your arrows and use wisely. rumor has it that in skyrim arrows will be more on the rare side. also try to keep a mental note of where your missed arrows have gone so you can search for them later.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Archery

very bottom of the page
I have also seen leaked footage, but only seen the long bow.

Cool beans thanks for that.

What he means is that longbows will probably have longer range than shortbows.

Get alchemy to poison your arrows.

No, what he meant was that longbows will have more range but do less damage, and the opposite for short bows.

Then why not just use a short bow the entire time since there is no reason to do less damage from a further range?

Remember to lead your target if its moving.

This isn't guns where the shell hits near instantly. Your gonna have a little delay.

Exactly. Which is why it made no sense at all.

Anyway. We've known for months that it is untrue.

Well the reasoning behind my guess work was that of game play balancing. The long bow could reach far off targets, but would be weaker, but the short bow was more of a 'shotgun' as in it has a short range, but more power. But this is probably wrong, and the balancing probably comes in the draw speed, instead of the power.

Snipers vs Shotguns.

Exactly, each suited to there own range perfectly. either way, i'm sure Bethesda has found a way to make them work.

Make your own arrows for shure invest a few perks into poisons for when you cant get a good sneak shot or just for those beefy dragon fights id go light armor to save the inventory space and for just kind of realism i know i wouldnt want to wear heavy armor and try to make a 50-90 meter shot could you imagine the shake from that? Maby invest into some sneak perks just have fun with it bro

Snipers have high damage, high range.

Shotguns have high damage, low range.

Actually most games, a shotgun will kill in 1 shot at short range, while a sniper will take 2 shots at any range (or 1 to the head).
Anyway's I agree with you about the bows, the differences will probably be in draw time, not power.

Ok i gotcha the way i took that was that longbows would be weak overall and short bows would be stronger overall but we shall see.

Conserve ammo use poisons

Choose the perk that allows you to reclaim double the amount of arrows off dead bodies.