As for other games that did it right, Skyrim had different sheaths for every weapon that isn't a two-hander. It isn't really that hard to do if you plan on giving weapons a proper sheath from the start. Assassin's Creed also gets bonus points for showing that most two-handed swords are indeed supposed to be carried on the belt like everything else.
Actually, it didn't. There are plenty of weapons without them - the one-handed Orcish sword is one notable I can think of off the top of my head.
Actually, it didn't. There are plenty of weapons without them - the one-handed Orcish sword is one notable I can think of off the top of my head.
The once-handed orcish sword is actually one of those that have a full scabbard, along with the steel sword, imperial sword, dwarven sword, elven sword and ebony sword.
The iron, falmer, forsworn, glass and daedric swords along with Dawnbreaker have minimal sheathes, straps or sword frogs.
Daggers pretty much all have a full scabbard, except glass, daedric and unique models like the blade of woe.
As for maces and axes, they are holstered on a visible leather ring at the belt, although it may be a metal ring on some models, I don't remember exactly.
I imagine it has something to do with clipping issues. At the end of the day, it would probably have to be done in terms of swapping out models in either the 'drawn' or 'sheathed' states.
In the 'drawn' state, you have the model for the sword, as well as the model for the empty scabbard. in the 'sheathed' state, to avoid clipping issues, you have the model for the weapon within the sheath rather than trying to get the weapon to sit within the sheath without clipping. As far as I know, that's how The Witcher 2 did it, which is why you sometimes got clipping issues when you drew your sword and when you sheathed it.
And like it or not, Bioware has finite resources. including the option of sheathes increases the amount of models they need to make by three fold. Because now you need another model for the empty sheath, and a model for the sheathed weapon. Which means for every single weapon, you need three models.
Let's take the amount of unique weapon models in Dragon Age 2, for example. I estimated about 100 unique weapon models, not including bows. Let's say that we want 'sheaths' of some kind for all weapons. Bows don't need a sheath because you can just sling those over your body by the draw string. But let's say that we want some sort of sling-sheath for staves and then sheaths for daggers and swords.
This means that you would need 300 models for a total of 100 unique weapon models. If you cut out staves needing a sheath, that's still just about 230 models. That's a lot of work for a feature that is nothing besides aesthetic. Sure, it adds to realism and immersion but what is it TRULY adding to the game from a game-design perspective? Not really anything.
It's not a matter of Bioware not being able to do it, it is more likely them choosing to put those resources into something else.
I would like sheaths as well, as realism and immersion is very important to me. But at the same time, I understand that Bioware only has so many resources to work with. And I'd rather have them cut sheaths than something that would have added something important to the story (such as more reactivity within the game world).
I imagine it has something to do with clipping issues. At the end of the day, it would probably have to be done in terms of swapping out models in either the 'drawn' or 'sheathed' states.
In the 'drawn' state, you have the model for the sword, as well as the model for the empty scabbard. in the 'sheathed' state, to avoid clipping issues, you have the model for the weapon within the sheath rather than trying to get the weapon to sit within the sheath without clipping. As far as I know, that's how The Witcher 2 did it, which is why you sometimes got clipping issues when you drew your sword and when you sheathed it.
And like it or not, Bioware has finite resources. including the option of sheathes increases the amount of models they need to make by three fold. Because now you need another model for the empty sheath, and a model for the sheathed weapon. Which means for every single weapon, you need three models.
Let's take the amount of unique weapon models in Dragon Age 2, for example. I estimated about 100 unique weapon models, not including bows. Let's say that we want 'sheaths' of some kind for all weapons. Bows don't need a sheath because you can just sling those over your body by the draw string. But let's say that we want some sort of sling-sheath for staves and then sheaths for daggers and swords.
This means that you would need 300 models for a total of 100 unique weapon models. If you cut out staves needing a sheath, that's still just about 230 models. That's a lot of work for a feature that is nothing besides aesthetic. Sure, it adds to realism and immersion but what is it TRULY adding to the game from a game-design perspective? Not really anything.
It's not a matter of Bioware not being able to do it, it is more likely them choosing to put those resources into something else.
I would like sheaths as well, as realism and immersion is very important to me. But at the same time, I understand that Bioware only has so many resources to work with. And I'd rather have them cut sheaths than something that would have added something important to the story (such as more reactivity within the game world).
Really, only some swords and most daggers need full scabbards. Rapiers, for example, could get away with leather frogs. Axes and maces only need a simple ring, and a scabbard for a two-handed sword isn't worth it, considering that most aren't supposed to be very sharp anyway (and you'd never sheathe them on your back).
Yes, it would increase the amount of disk real-estate taken up by models, but pretty much all of the 100 added models would be the result of copy-pasting, so they would not require THAT much work on the modeling team's part. You could say the same thing for nose shapes or hair colors, those kinds of details are supposed to be planned from the start. It's not additional work if they were supposed to be part of the game anyway. In this case, they apparently weren't.
As far as I know, allocating modeling/texturing resources to other assets doesn't have much impact on gameplay, level-design or story.
IMO, they should have cut some of the unnecessary and annoying visual effects for abilities and put that effort into dagger sheathes on the hips (at least sheathing swords makes more sense now).
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