One of the things that bugged me in Oblivion was a lot of the people look the same. I know the graphics in skyrims are gonna be much better, but will i be able to tell two different Nords from each other without help from their name popping up in a corner of the screen?

In Oblivion aren't all the faces randomized to be different?

Yeah but it was still hard to differentiate people's faces who were of the same race.

Good question, I did not find it hard to differentiate one guy from the next, but I would like a little more distinction between members of the same race.

I suppose they all ended up looking similarly doughy though.

I never really had trouble telling who was who in Oblivion.

I think that asymetry in faces, more distinct facial features (less muddy/rounded faces), the presence of and variation in facial hair, scars, and even paints/tattoos/piercings, and even some randomized variants in just textures on a given NPC's gear could go a long way towards making them stand out as unique and recognizable. Also, maybe subtle alterations to their animations, such as a little extra stiffness or looseness in their gait, or a varying degree of limp, bad/good posture, etc. All things we use to recognize people.

I was always able to tell the difference. the faces were randomized. unlike MW which had a set list of faces. which was probably why virtually every npc in MW had a name (even the bandits)

Technically, every NPC has a unique face, but I can sort of see the problem here. Individual faces tended to not really feel that distinct, and while I could often tell who was who as long as there weren't too many NPCs of the same race in the same city, if the game had more NPCs, I could see this becoming a problem, as eventually, different faces might just start to kind of blend together. Still, it was better than Morrowind, where due to the use of preset faces, a lot of NPCs DID in fact have the exact same face.

Hopefully, though, Bethesda's experiences will help them craft more distinct NPC faces in Skyrim. The fact that there's now room for variation in body shape as well as face should also help a lot, I think.

Yeah, it's as if the NPCs had nothing unique about them. Fallout's NPCs were much more unique, and the characters were actually interesting.
There also needs to be more distinction between the races, as I genuinely could not tell the difference between a Breton and an Imperial, while Argonians and Khajiits walked and acted like they were just humans, instead of stalking around on large, kangroo-like feet, like they did in MW.

This was worse in Morrowind then it was in Oblivion.