the only way I would accept generic NPC's is if they all had a unique name and I can talk to all of them. and they all have different opinions...

I guess that defeats the purpose of "generic" but you get my point.

basically, NO

Arena had a good thing going where you had to ask people what their name was. I'd prefer something of a combination of Daggerfall's filler npc's and Assassin's Creed's. They all have generated names, you can ask them for directions, and they just go about their business otherwise. Sometimes then the random npc is selected by the computer to initiate a randomly occurring quest, like some of those repeatable quests you see in Red Dead Redemption. If there's enough npc's in the world to make it seem somewhat realistic, I think people would forgive the fact that they can't follow someone to their house and watch them cook dinner. I don't think I'd ever do that even if it was programmed in...

Daggerfall's generic npc's were exactly that. They even responded to you based on your reputation and tone of voice when asking.

I'm pretty certain that there will be generic characters. It's already confirmed that some NPCs will only have a single line of dialog, while others will have dialog trees.

If there are generic characters, I'd like to see them have names at least.

I would like it if characters such as bandits and guards had names. For example, Frothmund the Bandit or Hillod the Guard.

I like that idea

Yes! The game needs generic npcs.

Oblivion felt so lonely at times, I had to download a mod that added generic npc's to cities and roads in the wilderness.
Then I downloaded a mod that added ambient sound to the cities, like people talking, laughing etc, and the atmosphere was AMAZING. The cities actually felt like cities.

Imagine roaming around in Skyrim, seeing a hunter stalking his prey, a lumberjack chopping wood, etc. It would add so much immersion to the game. These npc's wouldn't have names, but they should have a variety of different loot, and seem like they are part of something bigger.
New vegas failed on this part.



Edit: Randomly generated names sound great also. Main point is, generic npc's can't have the same armor, loot etc. They have to feel like they have a life of their own.

Most NPCs in TES are generic. Just because they have names doesnt make them not generic. Bethesda probably uses their own in house name generator.

i dun think bethesta able to make over 1000 non generic npc

you arent going to know the names of every npc in a city!

Like some have said, give them unique names by generator or whatever. Even if they share similar lines, at least they feel 'real'. One of the things I really disliked seeing in Fallout 3 was 'Megaton Settler'. It makes them less. A name denotes a history and a backstory even if they don't explain it in the name whereas something generic like "_______ Settler" robs it of any life.

They did in Oblivion.

but i want them to talk to :shakehead:

I remember in Oblivion when I walked into the southeastern part of that big city in the middle on the map and I found like 7 named NPC's all with the same things to say.
I'd rather have generic NPC's than have names to people that serve the same purpose as generic NPC's.
It's just frustrating going around talking to everyone only to find out that two or three people actually have something to say.
It also makes names less memorable, Other than Uriel Septim I honestly can't remember a single NPC's name in Oblivion.
Sure it was a long time since I played it but even when I was playing it there were so many names tossed at me I couldn't keep track of them all, not to mention they mostly used fantasy names which aren't easy to store in the memory.
So yes, I want generic NPC's simply called [Town] Citizen over a [censored] load of names NPC's with a 1:10 ratio of actually having something worthwhile to say.

i dun think theres 1000 of them

There's more than 1000.

Well If I must say .... 40/50 People in towns in Cyrodill, 10/20 people in Imperial City Districts 4/5 people in 'small homesteads' , doesn't make really sense in my eyes ...

I have no problem in 'commoner', or 'villeins' 'horigen' according to babelfish .... 'bar patron' 'drunk' 'beggar' 'courtesean', etc etc ... with limited or total no talking options ...

i used to play morrowind with a mod like that it was pretty interesting stuff, atleast did give the game a by far better immersion ....

Also it rather sounds Logical If I walk in my hometown in the center there 'hunderds' , commoners walking around me ...

Are guards like that too, all having names? From Morrowind and Oblivion, I figured that generic, unnamed NPCs were pretty much an Elder Scrolls standard.

yes, as long as 80% of them ignore you completely.

Yes, the guards had names and full dialogue.

Agreed. They need to do what they did with Daggerfall and at least have them all named randomly

As people have said, I want to see them, but only if there is a name generator.

People say they want to know the difference between generic and normal NPC's... I just don't think that's a good idea. No one should be "generic". I should think of everyone as an actual person, NOT as some randomly generated filler NPC. They should be crammed with a fair amount of generic dialogue, as to not seem dull, however. Make lots of rumours. Bring back My Trade, Background, Little Advice, etc.

Hm, see, the advantage of Morrowind's system was that no single NPC was generic, they were ALL generic - and yet, full of stuff they wanted to talk to you about, and often times you could just ask someone generic about a rumour or whatever and he could help you out.
And of course, everyone who didn't respawn had a name, and the only people who respawned were guards. Even bandits in their hideouts had names.

But really, I think the future for RPGs is something like Assassin's Creed. You can't have every NPC have complex AI and dialogue if you want to immerse the player in a huge, sprawling world. As long as you can still enter and rob every house in the city, that's fine with me. Pickpockets and assassins need a crowd to get lost in just as much in The Elder Scrolls as they do in Assassin's Creed, and that just won't work if everyone on the street knows your name and where you live.

in the big cities only and some random NPC's with names somewhat similiar to MCA but only in the largest cities that is fine for me

I think the imperial city needed some more foreigners but skyrim should not have very many spawns

I am okay with having generic nps's BUT they have to have names, and not just generic filler "Lol Peasant" or some crap. It takes all the mystery out of the world when you can tell which characters are slaughterable and which aren't; because of the magic, schizophrenic voices, that tell you which characters have names and which don't. Its just silly, and turns the game into a wild goose chase, going from NPC to NPC looking for one that actually have a name.

So long as their name isn't something like "Argonian Citizen", rather than an actual Lore based name, and so longs as they still have some kind of individual routine, it's somewhat tolerable. But then they're not really generic.

So I guess not, no generic NPCs please.