In Skyrim I'd like to see cities that are constantly active. If I head into a Tavern I want to hear a bunch of drunk Nords singing, or if I head into a church I'd like to see a couple people praying, if I head into a guard tower I want to see the guards talking, and laughing, telling stories, maybe practicing some moves. I want to head into a store or market and see people bartering and browsing. Things like this really make a city feel real, and I'd like to see features like this and others in the cities of Skyrim.


So thoughts? Ideas? Share both. :biggrin:

this is exactly awesome but bethesda can't add many npcs usually because of the lag it could cause on consoles from what i've seen but its possible in skyrim. Hopefully it'll happen, i felt oblivion with its huge size and lack of npcs for performance was great for speeds but killed some of the feel for me.

That would be amazing. Especially if they could incorporate it into the radiant AI.

Well I think that the consoles are capable of a little more. I honestly wouldn't know, but I think that they could add in a few more NPCs without causing lag. I'd feel bad if us console gamers were holding back TES series :cryvaultboy: . If the Taverns and Churches are still seperate cells ( which they likely will be) then it'd be possible for sure. For example, the Tavern in Bruma. There were usually five or six people in there. It wouldn't be too difficult if they added in one or two more and had some singing.

The radiant AI was really glitchy with NPCs killing each other and whatnot. That's why they toned it down; not because of consoles.

I'd like to see the majority of NPCs be made into background characters, along the lines of the crowds in Castle Town in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqOVebonZPk&feature=related (fast forward to about 5:00) or the crowds in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=051VNEofm7Y (I've only played the first, so I dunno how it works in later games).

Having bustling marketplaces with random NPCs going about their business would go a long way towards making cities feel alive, IMO. And since each NPC would be pretty basic (limit them to face/race/clothes... hell, go Daggerfall-style and give 'em random names!), unlike the overly complex characters like they are now, I don't forsee it affecting performance too badly.

Think of it as an evolution of Fallout 3's nameless schmucks in Megaton and Rivet City.

This could be implemented in the radiant AI system. As long as it's tweaked.

What I would really not like to see, is having a bunch of generic and random NPCs to fill the cities. Having a bunch of random characters to have a dozen or so "unique" NPCs is IMO immersion breaking and annoying. Plus, it would cripple the performance a lot.

I like that idea, but I wouldn't want them to be nameless. Even if you couldn't talk to these people I'd still want them to have names, so that they'd feel more like people, and not...well.....nameless AI in a video game.

Didn't Daggerfall give each of its random NPCs random names? They could do that again.

I'd happily wager that the low end of the PC market is what holds back many games.

I've also never seen anyone from Bethesda say that Radiant AI was in any way 'dumbed down' for Oblivion. Obviously, it didn't function exactly like it did in the E3 trailer that was released, but that was a demo. Maybe they made conceptual changes, maybe the code wasn't quite mature. I honestly don't know, but I've never seen anyone say, "Oh, yeah, we removed massive amounts of Radiant AI for [insert reason here]". I find it pretty hilarious that people blame consoles for any changes to Radiant AI when the game was originally developed for the 360 and then ported over to PC, and because I've helped many users with PCs that could barely handle Oblivion's AI.

Now, back on topic, I'd love to see cities being active and feeling like a real city, but it's pretty low on my priority list. Combat AI is much more important to me personally. I can't imagine being challenged in combat, I can imagine Drunken Nords sing, not that I would want to.

I think the people on this forum often underestimate the capability of the consoles. I can't say much for 360, but PS3 at least is a powerful platform, and they have not yet reached the limits of it's capabilities with any current games. Even though I'm fairly sure it was a LAUNCH title with the PS3, meaning it was brand new technology, it had the cleanest graphics of any version available, and it barely ever lagged. Going by what I've seen ojn Youtube and on my brothers (quite good) PC, the game runs much worse and is a lot more laggy on PC. Now they've had 5 years of the consoles and with the help of the whole industry, I think they will have learned to optimise their games on the consoles to a much greater degree. I really don't think the PC gamers will have to worry about sacrificing their game because of consoles. Besides, it's probably unlikely they will aim it at more than midrange PCs anyway.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100128114744AAhZ4lf

Okay so I really don't think the 360 is holding back TES as much as some people are saying it is. I'm pretty certain that the 360 is up to some advances in this regard. IDK maybe I'm wrong, and I'm sorry if I am, I don't know alot about hardware and software.

What they could do for some crowded areas is instead of individual NPCs with individual AI packages, there would be groups of NPCs behaving as one, with one AI package. Not too realistic, I know, but it would certainly boost performance and allow for very crowded scenes/areas.

they did this in Oblivion with radiant AI, you just didn't see it that much, but people would be purchasing food and guards would be practicing, well blades at least, not much bar chatting but they did incorporate this, just not to a high degree

To make it seem living they'd probably need an NPC system similar to Daggerfalls, but less random. Have dozens of NPC's littering the streets, most completely disposable and have a small amount of dialogue (a text system like Morrowinds would fit best, but unlikely due to the mainstream appeal). Who knows what their new engine is capable of.

I thought fallout was good it had a bunch of NPCs in the town that were unimportant, they were doing stuff and they had something to say when you talked to them

source for this information?

People [censored] about Oblivion's AI, but it was a massive step up from Morrowind. At least people were doing something, instead of just standing around or walking in circles in the same room all day, every day.

They complained because Bethesda over-promised and under-delivered. Provided they don't do that again you won't see many people complaining about TESVs AI.

I'd like to see something kind of like the townspeople in Assassins Creed, or the common infected from L4D.

Generic NPCs don't need to be able to be interacted with in any meaningful way, they're just scenery.

lack of npcs ARGEED! When the whole relams survival is depending on one big battle (TES4 The great gate) All they could get there was like 10 guards and Baurus

I whole heartedly agree! That's what I'm trying to accomplish with Pelagiad Expanded for Morrowind. If you're not a Morrowinder then you'll be missing out when we release Pelagiad Expanded in 2012 A.D. hehe

Since we can only see and hear things in the video game, a gentle text message at the top or bottom of the screen saying "The pungent smell of leather and oil fills the air as you cross the threshold." would be nice when I enter a blacksmith. TESII Daggerfall did that. When you would fast travel somewhere, you'd get a short little message at the top saying something like "footprints are here where a creature once walked. A crow calls from the distance" little things like that help add to the immersion.

I'd like to see bookshops having the merchant sitting at a desk, smoking his or her pipe while reading a novel. An alchemist should be churning ingredients or doing some kind of chemistry work while you're browsing through his store.

And of course, every shop should have those customers in it that just stand around asking questions but never actually buy anything. You get a lot of them in real life, believe me. I'm one of them! :biggrin:

Some type of toilet/out house.


Where to people go to do business? Certainly not in the general store I hope!

I want to see merchants haggling, Farmers tending more fields, priests praying, scum leaning/loitering on the side of the run down tavern.

why not. this will create a great game atmosphere

For me this is one of the most important aspects I want to see in the game, I want the game world to feel "alive"

Back when I played TES2: Daggerfall and entered a town for the first time, it truly felt "alive" for me. Quite primitive today, ~15 years later, but I want to be awestruck again with how alive TES5 feels.

Vizima in The Witcher was a really well made game city that felt alive I think. Kids playing around and people running for cover when it rains, people playing music in the taverns and so on. Very nice indeed. The Assassin's Creed games, especially the latest Brotherhood got very good stuff too.


It's fairly wellknown, but seeing the game is ~5 years old I don't remember any URL for it at the moment.