Fallout did a good job with it, with the caravans and people wandering around that weren't always hostile. There were doctors, the odd scavanger, and not everyone lived in the towns. I'd love to see more of this is the next TES game just not too much to interfere with my battles or getting in the way of the random shot of magic or arrow I fire while traveling.

This may seem morbid but I enjoyed coming across the odd dead npc that you knew shouldn't be there. I start to wonder how they got there. Were they there for a rendezvous and a jealous lover stabbed them? Were they just out for a stroll and got beaten to death by a troll? I once saw a woman from the Imperial City half buried under the bridge to the city. I'd like more traffic as FO3 has. If their surviability is a problem have convoys with guards etc.

Now, if Bethesda would actually do something with it, make them start optional quests ("Whodunit?" style, for example, or "Whoever finds my body, please bring this letter to ..."), that would be awesome. As it is, it was too little and too uninspired.

Ha! Was thinkin' the same. I agree. FO3 has dead npc's with letters pertaining to other npc's or caches. This would be excellent if implemented in ESV.

Yes; the lack of traffic bothered me quite a bit. It really added to the feeling that my character was the center of the world, and wasted all sorts of fun opportunities for Rogue characters, Thief characters, Knight characters etc.

Wierd, but it doesn't bother me after playing Red Dead or Fable 2. In OB what's with the random messege carriers, the ones that run down roads and through the forest in the mid-east side of the world, is there a quest attached to them?

"Troll Down!"

wow i never once thought of the opportunities but well populated roads would lead to a ton new and exiting things to do for characters. A thief could be a legit thief and so on

The lack of travellers bothered me in both MW and OB. In MW, there were occasional "travellers" who never actually travelled; they just stood there in the same place on the road for the rest of the game, and kept telling you that they were going to go somewhere in just a moment or two. You'd pass by the next day, and there they'd be, still "about to go". Six weeks later: still standing there.

In OB, there were guard patrols and even rare instances of pedestrians making their way along the overly-hazardous roads (and occasionally dying), but still barely any "traffic" to speak of, and not the amount of commerce which you'd expect in a major civilized province. Morrowind's case might have been semi-excusable, because the province was supposedly sparsely inhabited, but still not right. Oblivion did have "token" travellers, but so few that they may as well not have been there. Even some of the guards eventually got overwhelmed by the steadily increasing bandits and wildlife, when they weren't actively killing each other over some mishap.

In Morrowind, the roads didn't appear to be quite as dangerous as the surrounding countryside, although there were plenty of chances for creatures to wander near the roads and become an issue. In Oblivion,much to my dismay, the roads appeared to be far more dangerous than the "wilderness", so the "safer" way to travel was to hike cross-country through the fields and forests.

You see a few people walking around, but its rare.

Frankly it never bothered me. It doesn't need to be a super-busy realistic world, it just has to be good enough at suggesting that one exists. I wouldn't say no to more advanced traffic in TESV, but the way it was in TESIV didn't impair my enjoyment.

I pass named NPCs on the road and think that NPCs following schedules that involve travel and having legionnaires patrol are great improvements to the game. Adding some travelling merchants and generic Travellers would be another step forward.

A bit more would be nice. Nothing like a traffic jam. I would like there to be a lot of random encounters n the roads though.

I think it should vary from road to road. Perhaps from - for instance - the Imperial City on a direct route to some other major town the road is chock-a-block with caravans and traffic, and then the other smaller roads only have the occasional, foolhardy few. Also, it'd be good if the traffic could tie in with events and story progression, danger decreasing; markets increasing; weather-.. Y'know.

Semi-OT:

What's that mod for Oblivion that adds more patrols?

I do admit it would be nice to have more random encounters with NPC's who are going about their daily business. I could see it as a feature they add. You just have a few types of NPC's, where you have generic bandits, generic guards, and generic guild members who have no original names. Then there are traders, travelers, smugglers, and other generic NPC's who have unique names, which I suppose can be randomly generated. The game could have a table of popular first names and surnames from throughout the series, and when spawning these generic NPC roles, assign them a random combination of names. I suppose they could save the names they add so you don't see them twice on two different people, but I don't think anyone would take the time to remember the names of generic traveler NPC's.

It would also be pretty nifty to see this implemented in cities, where you have random NPC's who go around with random city activities, whether it be creating random conversations with other NPC's, appearing as random shoppers in stores, bargoers, people sitting on benches, and even just walking around with no real destination. You could possibly even set it up so that they are of the same race and use common last names with other nonrandom NPC's to give the illusion of families. The only problem I can think of is where they go when the day is done. In large cities with districts like the Imperial City, I could see it possible for them to walk away to another district at sundown and "conveniently" disappear, but in smaller cities the size of Chorrol, the only place to go to is to houses, and people would be confused upon following one of them into a house and seeing that they are nowhere to be found. Maybe these random NPC's can be permanent, with no real purpose other than looking nice. I would like to see actual full households, with spouses, relatives, maybe children, or their parents they can't trust living alone.

It would also be nice to see NPC's that have a purpose on the roads as well. It would throw a new spin on the scheduling of NPC's, such as Mrs. Vesnia leaves the city to visit her cousin for a week or so once a month, or Lord Verus leaves the city every weekend with the family to their country estate a ways away in the mountains, accompanied by a group of guards. Should you actually need to find these NPC's for any quest-related reasons, it would put greater importance in learning what their schedules are like by observing them, poking through their stuff, or asking around with people they know. I could imagine how this would make for unique experiences with the same goals. Say that you are an assassin, and you must kill Lord Verus. The first time you do it, he's just minding his own business in his home, an easy kill. But on another character, you do the same quest, but this time it happens to be on the weekend he goes to his country estate. You don't know this, you break in, and just find a group of guards who are keeping his house safe while he's away for the weekend. Then things might get even more interesting for that quest when Lord Verus returns home and hears that an assassin stopped by while he was gone, which motivates him to spend a little extra money on a set of armor and an enchanted sword he now keeps on him at all times.

That last paragraph got pretty off-topic, but the idea got me thinking about possibilities of improvement over Oblivion's AI.

It would make the game a lot better if there were more random encounters, merchants, serious situations, and even humorous situations throughout the game.

yeah, roads tend to be pretty devoid of life, a change would be in order for the future, imo.

I have that mod,its works great inspired me to walk again instead of fast travel,very funny seeing them fighting each other randomly sometimes.

Not really

those roads are pretty dangerous, I don't blame them.

More people on roads if you see someone on the road in oblivion you automatically attack because it will be a bandit 98% of the time. So yeah more realism in this aspect please it would make me feal like I AM my character.

I got annoyed by it so i downloaded some mods hopefully they'll fix it with the next elder scrolls

Don't patronize me for saying this, but I actually liked the barren roads. World seemed more peaceful that way. Sure, maybe a few traveling caravans, but I don't want to see one every day constantly.

I never expected to see you here, of all people


I completely agree.

I've meet a few traveling NPCs so it is not completely true. That said, you don't meet many people in the wilderness but it was never really that big a problem imo. Looking back, i wish there where a few more but that's it. It would make sense that most people stay in cities and vilages. Tamriel is far too dangerous for people to travel around without a very good reason if they can't defend themself or hire someone who can and it dosn't really help that the game takes place under the Oblivion-crisis. Then again, many people probably don't have a choise.

It would be nice with more NPCs on the road, like traveling merchants. It would also help if the bandits and Highwaymen where named, like in Morrowind. And if all the Highwaymen wasn't all Khajiit. :banghead: Just don't overdo it, i imagine that would be much more irretating.