Ehm, first of all - I think we're talking about different things. I'm talking about making horses feel like horses, look like horses, and act like horses. I also talk about making them meaningful to have as a feature.At the time of Oblivion's release - their implementation of the horse was just about the best available - when you combine the above features.
As explained my point is that horses having a meaning in OB would greatly outbalance the game above everything else
Your argument that they implemented horses essentially "without meaning" and without the right "feel" - just to make the game challenging, is about as far away from my perception of reality as I can imagine.
My argument is that they made horses as they did in order not to screw the whole TES series thing , this is why mounted combat was left out .
Also in the map there was not enough space for horses to strafe and because of textures and horse distance enemy cavalry within arrow reach would become invisible ; so nothing to do with challenge , it only has to do with game mechanics.
When you add horses you have to add horse riding skills and as we know modern RPGs are trying to reduce the amount of skills .
I'm not sure if you realise this, but it costs a lot of time and resources to get animators and designers to implement this kind of feature in a game that's otherwise not about horses at all. There's a gigantic difference between a horse focused mod or a game where it's part of the title, and a general RPG like Oblivion.
That you can have horse enthusiast modders spend their free time dedicating themselves to making a horse mod, doesn't exactly make the professional approach trivial. It's bound to get easier as the feature is getting more common, and developers are getting used to it - but I think there's a lot of work to be done yet.
No argument there, Beth even skipped the dodge animations in Morrowind .
I am positive when i say that the technology and the skill are there for good mounted combat games to come forward , Assassin's Creed had horses only for transportation but the whole thing looked good.
Horses above everything need space and good combat style, for example i could never land an arrow on a head using Gothics/Risen 's archery style .
In the last RPGs all we see is stupid islands with limited space , can you imagine your character on a horse in Risen's starting beach? lol nfw !
You're making about as much sense as Alrik normally does. Tell me, do you hail from the same planet?
Not making sense is the purpose of the forums , no?