I was just in a fort near riften and i was clearing it out. I snuck round and Daggered or arrowed the bandits' in the fort. As I progressed to the top I snuck right to the top of the small tower. Here a bandit had made a beautiful cabin/house on top of a ruined fort top. The view over riften and the hold was awesome. It was also a really realistic but beautiful home he had made. I stayed in sneak and listened to the bandit chief who's home it was, he originally started singing a song. Then he proceeded to mutter and talk about how he always waited for women but they never came back to him. I then heard him talk about how he wasn't paying a single septim to "the little brat's mother" and "it might not even be mine" which I assumed meant he had a bastard child somewhere. I have never encountered in a game before a personality or personal touch to generic NPC's before. It really makes them seem lifelike instead of AI robots who I do not care about killing.

Yes, bandits say banditish things when you're undetected by them.

I agree. Along with what they say, all the bandit groups have a story to them. Much better than past games.

They don't even have names. What sort of surname is 'Marauder'?

Imagine the hell it would be naming every single bandit....


Those bandits are tough though, I remember one time:

As I ran the bandit through with my Deadric Greatsword, lifting her up into the air as the fiery blade caused her body to combust into flames, and the unholy magic cast upon the desecrated meta began feeding on her rich blood, I heard her laughing as she shouted out amidst the flames;

''Like the bite of a fly!''

o.O

Wouldn't be too hard with a random generator for each race.

You really have no idea how to enjoy the fun, do you.

I laughed so hard at this if only because I've had a similar experience when lopping a bandits head off. (kinda creepy actualy)

Some of the bandits' singing is better than the bards'....

I dunno, I've slaughtered many a bandit with a ridiculously oversized weapon in my time would just be nice to decapitate someone called Arnbjorn Axe-Smasher or something rather than Bandit.

...
then you pulled out an arrow and shot him in the back of the head...

Because you ask a bandit for their name before slicing there throat? (Please do not use the NPC as an example because that's different)

I also much enjoyed the bandits in this game.

Of course after playing too much the dialogue gets repetitive but that's not the game's fault.

Of course they have names. You just don't know them. Not every bandit are telling their names to you when you are in the battle with them - that wouldn't be smart at all.

There are two reasons they don't have names.
1. That would just be ridiculous naming all of them.
2. If they had names, the player wouldn't know if they are just random people or bandits.

We should be told IMO, and it's the same with the generic "Imperial Soldier/Stormcloak/_______ Guard" tab. It's not exactly a major gripe, but would just be something nice to see.


1. Again, randomly generate them.
2. More immersive IMO. There's no reason you should know until you can see them.

I wouldn't mind If various bandit chiefs had names. it makes no sense for every bandit to have one. Just use that willful suspension of disbelief and figure your char just doesn't know them. But when you get a quest to clear out the bandits in some cave being led by (insert name of chief) because they're killing helpless townsfolk, it makes it more personable to use a random name generator on the one boss. Just make sure the naming algorithm applies to the quest giver's text and the actual baddie.

Yeah I agree, the bandit chief should be named but the rest of the rabble should be generic

Yeah a lot of the bandit dungeons have their own little storylines. Its pretty nice. Though the bandits of Skyrim seem to be especially fond of siring bastard children. Ive already heard 6-8 bandits muttering that very complaint heh.

I'm fine with them not having names, you don't know them after all, makes it more realistic.

I must admit I feel rather guilty killing bandits sometimes, they're almost too realistic, what gets me is when they're in the middle of eating dinner or cooking while I kill them, feel kinda bad for interrupting their meal.

What I don't get though....... is that they all speak........like this.......

But yeah..........some of them do............sing better than bards.........

Do you know how hard it would be to deal with all the other things a character has to deal with besides just the name if they named them all? Rather than just be bandit and lumping a script in that randomly generates their weapons and whatnot, they would have to add each individual character each with scripts attached to them. That's more room for bugs. And would also increase the game size, and resource usage, dramatically.

As someone designing an open world sandbox type of RPG, I say screw you that is WAY too much work for something that really doesn't have anything to do other than die....just sayin.

Immersion wise it makes no sense that they would have names, I mean in truth you shouldn't know anyone's name until they are introduced to you or you hear about them if you want immersion

Well back in the day, people's last names were their occupation. Smith, Tailor, Baker, etc.

Alot of the hostile NPCs have some fantastic conversations. A really nice touch that Im sure many people sadly miss