I'm not bothered about crossbows, I wants me an Atlatl. Possibly a Boomerang, Yo-yos might be pushing it a little.Edit: Unnecessary apostrophe.

More weapons = more choice. It really is as simple as that. To say people want them just 'for nostalgia' is nonsense. Any addition to the available armoury is a good one (provided it fits in with lore) whether it was in a past game or not.

I think it'd be more fitting if guards of the richest city Solitude had crossbows, and as the game is set 500+ years after when we last saw them (technology must have advanced a bit)

207 years, actually.

Still, there is no reason not to include something that would be a choice of the player. I can tell you that I would gladly be shooting one had I been down to my last means of ranged attack, or ANY attack for that matter.

I could see an early build warrior using it. Get a shot off, shout them back, depending on the reload speed, you get one more shot off or switch to your main weapon. Your enemy is now hurt without the same having happened to you.

I just found out oblivion was set only 6 years after morrowind lol, for some reason I had it in my head it was something like 200 years, but that's skyrim since oblivion :b

I don't know. I'll have to see if I like it, if and when it's in the game. I absolutely love the Archery as it is right now though so we'll see. More to love, I hope.

Now i just want spears,flails,morning stars and throwing weapons :3

I am not excited about crossbows. I never use them in games that have them. I will always pick a bow over them. Bows have a much better rate of fire, and have a certain elegance to them crossbows lack.

I see no problem with them being in the game though. If other people like them, have fun.

The true reason behind crossbows....

Werewolf hunting. We will be able to join the Silver Hand and fight against everyone plagued with Lycanthropy and shoot them with silver bolts.

Edit: Typo.

Crossbows are incredibly inacurate and have a slow firing rate, as well as being bulky and expensive.
Talking in real world terms of course.
Skyrim could be different. The long bow was no where near realism (size) but hey its a fantasy game

Fixed it for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow
(scroll down to comparison with conventional bows)

Whats wrong with wanting an orc who was the strength to knot a crossbow and doesn't like using twigs, strings and toothpicks?

Whats wrong with wanting a not all that great at Bowman ship Imperial who only has standard training to use crossbows as a preliminary attack?

whats wrong with wanting to see something different than Sword/Shield and Bow?

Whats wrong with diversifying?

Whats wrong with adding stuff back from prior games since Skyrim is a massive success?

Whats wrong with throwing a bone to those who are asking for stuff instead of being stagnant with those who've moved on or don't care?

I've liked crossbows long before I played Morrowind, or even heard of The Elder Scrolls. And I still haven't actually been able to find a crossbow in Morrowind yet. But I guess I'm just being nostalgic because I'd like to see crossbows in Skyrim. There's nothing particularly "exciting" about crossbows, I just like them. In games, I'll almost always choose crossbows if I have the option just because they're different, and less common in video games. At least the kind that I generally play.

Something else I'd like to add into the pros/cons debate of bows versus crossbows is that bows tend to be much quieter. An assassin or hunter would probably be more likely to use a bow. Crossbows, on the other hand, can be held at full draw for a longer period of time. Contrary to what Hollywood suggests, if you were to hold a fully-drawn longbow on a target for five minutes, your arm would start to get fatigued after the first minute or so and your aim would get wobbly. With a crossbow, the mechanism holds the string for you, so you'd have more time to line up your shot. Any stress on the shooter's arm would come from the weight of the crossbow, which could be rested on something.

How does the Dwemer equipping their guardians with crossbows = The Dwemer invented crossbows?

Well, think of it as a bow, but better for people who more use Heavy armor, and want much more power, but at the expense of agility and reload time.

Again, it's not about arguing against more features - it's about realizing that the loss of minor things, because the team is busy putting their time, manpower, and resources into more important things, isn't really a big loss worth getting upset about.

Crossbows being in the game would be awesome. Would they be worth pushing the game back for to implement? No. Are crossbows being out a loss worth being upset about? No.

And that's the thing, I'm not going to sit here and say "You know what would be awesome? If Bethesda removed spears, crossbows, Athletics, Acrobatics, and Spellmaking!!! WOOO!!!"

But when those things are removed, I'm going to try to look at the whole picture, not just the lack of crossbows, and try to come to a logical and rational conclusion on the matter. That rational and logical conclusion tells me that 1.) what was lost is really not a big deal to begin with, and certainly not worth getting upset about and 2.) that what was removed is not worth the sacrifice of either other features, or a push back so they can be implemented.

That's not to say there aren't losses worth being upset about. But crossbows are not one of them.

In a perfect world, all of this stuff would be included. In a realistic world, choices have to be made and cuts have to be made. Instead of focusing on what we've lost (crossbows, spears, Athletics, Acrobatics, Spellmaking), I choose to look at the evolutions, and what we've gained (superior combat, superior magic system*, poisons, dual wielding, return of Enchanting, fully fledged crafting system, much more detailed world, much more alive world), all of which I feel greatly outweighs what we've lost.

* = I am talking about the magic system itself, how it actually works. The absence of many spell effects is very much felt, and certainly less than what we've had before, but I feel the actual mechanics of the system are a vast improvement and the best we've ever had.

Same excitement as having different types of swords. Or different types of one-handed weapons really.
Same excitement as having multiple categories of destruction magic.

It's nice to have some variety when choosing how to destroy things. In the end, all the weapons and spells in the game have, more or less, the same goal:
beating opponents.

However, nobody will argue that it's nice to have plenty to choose from. Thus, it's always nice to have a few more.

Because how the hell am I supposed to have a respectable vampire hunter without a crossbow? Flames and swords can only get me so far.

There were two. The dwemer obviously invented them and people tried(marginally successfully) to imitate them.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Crossbows_and_Bolts

As for the idea that people only want it back because of nostalgia or because it was in Morrowind? No, that is stretching it, a lot. There is value in variation.

Many people just do not like that there are fewer and fewer weapon styles and types each game. The crossbow thing is just a small part of a bigger wishlist. The series is progressing in many areas but it is also regressing on others. Kind of like 5 steps forward, 8 steps to the side and 4 steps back. That is regression with progression when a series should progress a lot as it goes on. From better writing and lore, to more content, better graphics and better gameplay. Of course I feel like we gained quite a bit in terms of the world building and gameplay but the rest leaves something to be desired.

Skyrim had what, like 8 specific weapon types? Long/broadswords, Two-handed swords, battle axes, waraxes, warhammers, maces, daggers and bows. Morrowind had spears, halberds, longswords, broadswords, shortswords, daggers, throwing stars, knives and darts, katanas, waraxes, crossbows, battle axes, warhammers, clubs, maces, tantos, wakizashi, and battle staves. Those are all base items. 19 of them. This is not including uniques. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Base_Weapons
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Weapons

Morrowind even had more artifacts than Skyrim. Regression of a good thing is bad. I don't think anyone here would object to more weapon variety would they? Time restraints aside of course. Not saying Morrowind is a better game or a Skyrim is either. They both stand on their own strengths but Skyrim is supposed to be better than Morrowind in every facet but it is not. Not even close in many areas.

EDIT-I actually think it would have been worth it, imo, if they pushed their release back an entire year or even a few months. They obviously did not have a completely finished product upon release. (yes it is very obvious btw if you just know where to look) That is why there were so many issues for so many people. Especially on the systems they were ported to like the PC and PS3. That is just bugs and poor optimizations though. There is even quite a lot of data in the gamefiles that shows they wanted to include more and could have. Just given a little more time. There is evidence for much more in depth civil war questlines and truly living economies that were just not quite where they wanted them to be on release. There are all sorts of left over things in the gamefiles that they intended to do. However they had a fancy release date and they needed to please the Suits. They released a good game that could have been much, much better given a little more time. Really, not even THAT much more time. People honestly are that impatient that they couldn't stand and wait a few more months?

Crossbow bolts are armour peircing while bows lack the power to drive through, that is why crossbows became popular.
So it should be a weapon that negates armour or to an extent some of the armour rating.

Nope not it at all man. Sorry. The reason they became popular is because of how easy they were to use. This also came with the benefit of a nation not having to pay higher wages to more professional soldiers such as longbowmen who, while with their longbows were not as efficient at piercing armor but still could pierce them, required much more skill and training to be effective.

So reasons for crossbows popularity? Ease of use, easy to field an effective army and cost efficient. Or more simply, Cheap, easy and fast(to field armies).

A typical army of longbowmen of equal number to an army of crossbowmen would leave the crossbowmen devastated because the longbowmen were generally better trained(irrelevant here) and could fire much more quickly(about 3-4 times more quickly).

Well, there are many ways to make crossbows unique, especially if bethesda adds a new perk tree, some thing like this :

-Vanilla Crossbows: Drawing/Reloading the crossbow costs stamina and takes twice as long as drawing a bow. Also shorter range then bows, but crossbows will have a higher accuracy and dmg.

-1st perk: typical 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 % more dmg
-2nd perk: Drawing/Reloading stamina cost removed
-3th perk: Bolts have an 75% ignore armor (crossbows bolts had a good armor pentration)
-4th perk: Bolts Stagger for 100% (because of the higher weigth of the bolts)
-5th perk: Bolts cause bleeding dmg (higher impact of the heavy bolts result with high internal injury)

And so on...

So there a many ways to make crossbows diffrent from bows, if crossbow get added with the dlc i will try them out.

Just a guess, based on how the Dwemer were the most technologically advanced race. And the only place where there are crossbows are the centurions. Unless a book mentions them?