So if dragons are Attacking towns cities and settlement (speculation) obviously NPC's will die in a manner which potential can be 100% out of our comtrol. I know we have the example of Radiant AI from the game informer article( where the shop keeps sister takes over the quest line). Does this mean that NPC's will become "essential" during a dragon raid on a settlement or that esstially that there will be a never ending supply of dragon and potentially PC fodder. I guess I am just curious about how something like this could work with out screwing you out of potential quests. Unless that is what makes a dragon attack more pressing because the quest chain could be lost forever due to the death of The entire faimly.

Any thoughts or ideas?

You killed my 3rd cousin twice removed, prepare to die you son of a [censored]!

Infinite family lines for the win!

I was kinda think how ridiculous that could be. I am Johan the 12th you killed my last 11 reletives a week ago! Or maybe have a family friend take over? I mean they cant just have an endless supply of NPC's to keep refilling the world could they?

Certainly would make it interesting to keep towns populated. New people moving into a house where the previous occupant passed away, unscripted.

That sounds like something you'd hear in a game of Dwarf Fortress.

Todd said there would be 2-3 tiers max to this mechanic. It won't be infinite. No way of knowing if essential npc's will be prevalent in towns but it is said that they will be mostly limited to main quest NPC's and after you exhaust your 2 or 3 Radiant Story replacements for the other's your out of gas and you lose the quest(s).

I hope they do, well I guess Its just not that big a deal to me either way. There will be a mod for the another.

The veeeeryyyyyy strong image of a long line of NPC's comes to mind.

Each one behind of the other with a sword in hand, waiting to pronounce.
"Have at thou villian, thou killd'est my brother, aunt, uncle, son, daughter, father, mother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, grandson, grandaughter, dog, cat, hamster.. etc".
At the player character.. if the game is not set up for this it should be.

wtf is this bullcrap

Well hopefully it's at least viable, whatever happens. I mean an endless supply of family members to inherit your business is just kind of lame.

My guess would be a Radiant AI system that's going to be totally flawed and horrible.

But that's just me...........

I wonder how often or rare these attacks will be?

I hope at least 2-3-4 per main quest play through.

This.. my post was an irreverent swipe at how ridiculous the concept could get if left to go out of control.
May haps it failed in clarity to some, but still is more horse piddle than bullcrap.

You mean the radiant story system.
And no, there won't be infinite NPCs. (except for maybe generic street fillers) The main quest, and any larger quests will most likely be protected by essential tags (except when its your job to keep someone alive) past that, there is probably a good chance of losing quests. Odds are, they will add a quest complete stage for when everyone who can give the quest dies. It has no rewards, but would unlock other quests that could be dependent on you completing that one.
Hopefully, most NPCs of use will get inside during a dragon attack. Its the generics (street fillers with no dialog) that would probably get killed off and respawned.

Guys...your not going to axe entire family lineage replacements ok? relax lol its not like that.

Maybe a redundant cicle could help:

jhonny ---> Bob ---> Carl ---> Juan ---> Fred ---> jhonny again ---> etc etc

after all if the family line is composed from 5 persons like the above example and you are a badass who kill them all, maybe you'll never remember that jhonny was the first guy who was killed.

What? The NPC I killed comes back to life? No, the only logical way is to have one or two relatives, then that's it. The quest won't be accessible anymore.

This.

I would assume that Bethesda has a way to keep dragon attacks from breaking quests by killing quest related NPCs. If you kill NPCs and break a quest as a result, that's you're fault, but if it happens because of factors completely outside the player's control, like say, dragons attacking a city when you're not around, that's going to make a lot of players very annoyed. Perhaps important quest NPCs will always take cover inside a safe building when dragons attack, and only come out when its safe, and only random NPCs will be out in the streets to serve as dragon fodder, or maybe NPCs related to important quests are still essential and handled like in Oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "I want you to go to the Scary Dungeon of Evil Doom to retrieve the Ultimate Sword of Mighty Stabbing for me, here, let me mark the dungeon on you're map. Oh, yeah, and I'm angry that you killed my brother." thing only only applies to NPCs related to side quests. After all, I doubt that if you kill Esbern (Assume he can be killed at all.) he'll be replaced by his brother. "John who is Esbern's brother was one day an office and was writing in a journal..."

Yes, I don't really think that the system is meant to be an actual replacement for essential NPCs that does everything the system does, but just a means to allow players a bit more freedom with killing NPCs while not immediately breaking quests for using that freedom.

Honestly and seriously Sebeth, the first paragraph you've posted is exactly what I'm looking for.
Yes it'll make me green and orcy just as much as anyone.
However it'll show actual development to the RPG.
A full AI DM, with the sheer tendency to pull off a HAL.
I want cause and effect, I want to feel that if I go away and do something else in a full blown civil war with dragons.
I may come back to randomly and in a unique fashion find that I've been fracked for doing so.

Maybe the cities are guarded by lookouts, signaling when a dragon is near and then everyone would take cover and only the -infinite- guards would die in the attack. Seriously, I wouldn't build up a city without having lookouts in towers, the walls and basically everywhere else nyway, especially not if I knew there are dragons and giants out there, ready to attack at any moment.

It will get lonly if NPC' dont respawn, either because of dragon attacks or reasons i cant "explain".

I think it would be a good thing if a NPC' respawned after some time. Not the same guy of course, but lets say his brother from Morrowind could replace him