"Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things"
-Todd Howard

That quote really raised my expectations, but they were met and exceeded when I read this quote from the GI article:

"If you murder the shopkeeper in Riverwood that might give you a quest, his sister will automatically inherit the shop, and might even offer you the same quest. However, knowing that you killed her brother, she might do so only in anger and frustration."

That's so next-gen and epic. I mean, it shouldn't really matter if I want to chop the shopkeeper's head off with my big sword, and then do his fetch quest, or do it in the reverse order. His sister should give me the same quest when she sees my big sword; I shouldn't even need to do any "Admire, Joke, Coerce, Boast" with her. Imagine if I didn't get the same "Wolf Pelts Fetched" Achievement to show off to my XBOX Live buddies? That would be restricting player freedom!

Please tell me you're joking...

Please tell me you're joking about not being able to see that he is clearly joking... :facepalm:

I agree, to a point, and this quote did strike me as... well, pathetic. I'm hoping that the article's tone (one of hype and excitement without a true appreciation of the genre) and writing (poor, if you ask me) make it sound worse than it is. Certainly, that choice of words -- "anger and frustration" -- is practically nonsensical given the context. Replace them with "fear and desperation" and suddenly it doesn't sound quite as ridiculous a situation.

Is that other quote really from Todd?

You can never be 100% sure in those times... :whistling:

Key word = "might"

It appears twice in the quote you provided... You seem to be conveniently overlooking it though.

Well go to youtube and watch the videos where the possibilities and awesomeness of Oblivions Radiant AI were presented. And what of that made it in the game? I will belief it when I`m playing the game for myself.

^^This^^ Don't get your hopes up yet with the radiant story they may just decide to leave it out or dumb it down for release.

I will agree Choice and Consequences hasn't exactly been a strength of Bethesda's in-house team for the last few games. Ah well, maybe we'll get more info further on down the road that indicates otherwise.

Edit: That being said, I'm still majorly excited about this game. If they futz up choice and consequences in another Fallout game, I'll be peeved, but with the elder scrolls I'm a little less concerned.

It "might" happening is still terrible writing. I need a new gardener to clean out my vegetable patch, gee wasn't that axe murderer an alchemist; he would certainly know a thing or too about gardening so I'll just have to ask him the next time I let him buy things at my store.

The problem with Oblivion was that they tried to put too much innovative stuff into one game and ended up with a mess thus they needed to dumb the features down. Skyrim has a lot of stuff that Oblivion was supposed to have, but I think that those 4 years would have been enough to take care that they work as they want this time... not to mention that the game is supposed to be mostly finished so it is mostly polishing, balancing and testing that remains.

Tough I would not be surprised that what Todd said was true. That approach is very... Bethesdish.

But if I read the first quote their will be no combat on horse riding?

That title made me lol a bit It does seem kind of silly when you put it like that, but maybe all will be explained later. Maybe she sends you on a quest in the hope that the yetis or whatever will finish you off? I like that businesses will be "inherited" - I wonder if the same will happen to the houses? I remember a thread on here before the GI info wondering if they would remain empty, be inherited or put up for sale - we shall see, hopefully!

I think I read somewhere that was unintentional and a mistake of sorts. Hope they don't repeat it in Skyrim' videos.

I'd say it'd have to work like this.

You killed her brother, but without witnesses or he died of causes unrelated to you= "Have this quest. I can't pay as much because business went down since my brother died."

You killed her brother with witnesses= "Get the Hell out of my store, you murdering scum."

If it doesn't work like that, then I'll cry heresy and egg Todd Howard's house.

yeah if anything the sister of the shopkeeper should not talk to you, call guards or try and kill you... certainly NOT offer you a cash based fetch quest.

I'm not really excited about that comment from Todd Howard either. If you killed the shop keeper his sister won't be giving you quests, she'll be sticking a dagger in your gut at the first chance.... or that's what she should be doing.

The concequence of killing someone shouldn't be you still get the quests.

Would be nice to know if the inheritence is dynamic (after 'x' amount of time, a dead NPC is regenerated with new stats and everything, given a different name, and is said to be a "relative"), such that it can happen with any persistent NPC -- it could give a disposition hit (depending on who the killer is, and if they're known) and slightly altered dialog. Or if such setups are hard-coded between specific characters and scripted.. just set up for some characters on the off-chance they die.

What if she didn't like her brother? Or your speechcraft was exceptionally high and could sweet-talk her into thinking it wasn't you.

Maybe her brother was a real ass and deserved it, so she's mad at you for killing her brother but can't really blame you :tongue:

Sarcasm alas hardly conveys with text, but I choose to see your post as being just that.

I think its a little silly that you'd get the same quest from a relative whos brother you've murdered.
Actions should have consequesces.
"you wanted that magical amulet? well tough, you killed my brother and I hid it where you'll never find it."

I don't know, the example given doesn't make it sound very good, as the topic starter seems to point out using sarcasm, because "Anger and frustration" sounds like a bit too small a reaction to seeing the person who killed your own brother, and you probably wouldn't just trust the character who was responsible for it to do some task for you, but it actually seems to make sense that if you were to kill NPCs who run some sort of business, someone related to them could take over, assuming there's anyone to do so, it avoids a common problem with games that let you kill anyone you want, which is that even once NPCs have been killed, the world will simply continue on as though it doesn't change anything. At most, some people might talk about how so and so died. No one will move into that character's house, or take over the business if that character offered some service, and yet somehow, you can't cause the economy to collapse even if you kill off vital businesses in a town.

I don't know what to say on the idea of having the person who replaces the old person still giving you the quest. The way it's put in this thread, it sounds like it's a way to take away any concequences for killing NPCs, but if it's like that, then it's a better alternative to essential NPCs, and I'm sure that essential NPCs are here to stay, unless Bethesda can come up with a better way to keep quests from being broken easily, and I'd say allowing you to still kill those characters but making it so you can still do the quests related to them is a preferable approach to just not letting you kill them at all. Not that I plan to go around killing random NPCs, whether the game lets me or not.

it cant be unintentional if it was one big scripted scam

on topic - imo, it was a bad example of a good system, and im hoping bethesda really nails it.

I want consequences when I kill people... this isn't an FPS, so if I put glass shards in a guy's mouth I don't expect them to (even begrudgingly) help me for a little while.
If you kill a shopkeeper, that should close the shop, at least temporarily. Even if their sister/cousin/brother/dad/mother/estranged lover inherits it, she shouldn't give you the quest or sell to you.

...maybe not. But I try to be optimistic