Hello, Galraen!
galraen wrote:As there were wheels depicted in Morrowind, and you could actually own a wagon in Daggerfall I take it you meant the programmers weren't up to the job rather than not existing in Tamriel.
I've never played that game, but I expected you to reply and mention it! You have a funny way of putting things!
I've seen screenshots from that game though. The graphics appear to me to be different from those used in the current game.
Now I can't give you exact quotes or details. But if I recall right, the gist of it is, they tried to have wheels, but somehow they didn't work well enough so they dropped them out of the game. Something about lag and framerates maybe?
Here's the odd thing about it all to me though. Somebody made a mod involving a transportation network that puts carts for hire in the game. But the implimenation is more of a way around the Indiana Jones-style map trick of "Fast Travel". You pretend that instead of using that techinque, you got into a cart instead, and arrive at your destination. Cities only though. Supposedly it makes it more immersive for people into immersion. But you still can fast travel to smaller towns, et cetera. Apparently, the mod-maker couldn't make wheels work either.
Contrast that, to something I saw in a "YouTube" video. The mod maker made a video to demonstrate his new "Dwarven Subway System". But the angle doesn't depict actual rolling wheels, so it could just be "sliding along" but looking and sounding like it is "rolling along". It looked good enough.
Then there's another mod that I actually tried, involving elements of another game. You find the items within Arcane University. You get them and equip them, to make it seem like you are in a hovercar or on hovercycle. But the sound effects dont' match always. I could still tell that my character was walking, running, and jumping, while wearing armor made to look like a vehicle!
So that modder had problems with rolling along too I guess.
But floating on water and flying seem to be just fine for mods! I tried one mod that allows you to take over the "Marie Elena" as your own ship. You stand at the helm position and activate it. You can Fast Travel or engage the manuel method. It worked great! Too bad I kept wrecking my ship by getting it stuck on rocks. I would even get the skiff stuck too!
The Pegasus mod worked great, until I got a later mod that conflicted with it, so I chose to not use it anymore, in favor of the other mod. It required the "Open Cities" mod to work, so that you land Pegasus anywhere. Since I stopped using AlienSloth's Goth Shop mods, I may go back to the Pegasus and Open Cities mods, someday.
However, I do have a current mod that has a quest about a Daedric recon mission that you have to stop, using a Dwarven Fireball Cannon to blast blimp-shaped "Daedric Eye-Ships" out of the sky!
So that just leaves actual rolling wheels as a problem I guess. In anticipation of what you might write back about that. I'd hope that they learned their lessons from consumer feedback, and perhaps have a remedy ready for the sequel. One that allows gorgeous graphics and more options, rather than choosing one or the other. They had to experiment to learn. Experiment in this case, being let the consumers see what they can do with it.
You know, when I worked for "Wal-Mart", in the early part of this decade, me and some of the other associates, noticed how new safety warnings would appear on the cardboard compresser. Keith observed aloud,
"You know, each time they put up a new sign, it means somebody actually did what they warn you not to do!"
Meaning to me, the desinger probably overestimated other people's common sense and reasoning ablities, and just assumed that people would know better than to put themselves in harm's way like that. But there are too many people who need actual signs to tell them what is okay and what isn't. I've heard lots of people express loudly,
"If it wasn't okay, it'd be illegal!" Or,
"It's only a crime if you get caught!"
Well, game developers sometimes have to put a product out and see what happens to it in the hands of game players, just like other manufactures have to do sometimes with their products. See how it works outside of lab conditions. Like how Nobel didn't intend for people to use his invention to kill people. To make up for his guilt, he came up with his prizes.