I found travelling in Oblivion to be quite dull not only because of the lack of great landscapes, but also because of the lack of life.

Sure, you occasionally see a random Imperial Guard walking down the roads, but that is really nothing.

I think it would really add to the atmosphere if there were actually caravans and travelers going through the big roads between cities, and occasionally some bandits on the smaller roads who ambush travelers.

A forest where it would actually be dangerous would be nice too. Not too powerful animals, but in large quantities coupled with powerful monsters would make it much more fun to go through the forests, since you're always being paranoid.
It would make you use the large roads more often, since there are other friendlies around in case there is an ambush or a monster comes strolling across.

I think it wouldn't be too hard to add, since you can just add in a schedule in Radiant AI or something to tell them to go to another town, buy stuff, sleep in an in, and travel back.

Yes. In fact, one of the first mods I am releasing if they don't do this.

They did that in Oblivion, you know. Anyway, yes, SOME forests being very dangerous would be awesome. The more life the world has, the better, obviously.

you know what else would add life, critters! This isn't a joke, sure you had Sheep, Horses, Crabs, Rats, Boars and Deers in Oblivion, you didn't have things like rabbits, weasels, otters, squirrels or other such little creatures. I think that Skyrim being confirmed as having birds will make things a bit more alive tho and just adding people doesn't always add life, I remember going through Assassin's Creed with roads piled up with people but the fields they were walking past were still just empty and fairly lifeless with little actually occurring in them... no real life, just people walking past... too add life, I think you have to add life and in this case, a bit more eco-system could go further. Seeing a fox or a cat occasionally hunting for a rabbit or a rodent or birds occasionally feeding in fields and the such would add life.

Well then, I was not aware of it. I only remember seeing Imperial Guards on the roads.

Even if they did, there were far too few citizen NPCs. There were what, 25-40? in some cities? They should add apartments and slums to the cities and add many more NPCs with unique names (not that hard). It's annoying always seeing the same old people standing in the middle of Chorrol.

I agree totally. They should double the NPC to house proportion. Just have more people living together and more homeless people.

You're getting a standing ovation from me.
As in dungeons, there needs to be more insignificant events, Life going about Its business, of which you are just a casual witness. The overarching principle would be to have a vast amount of small mundane events taking place at any given time, of which only a fraction would be relevant to your quests.

Also, In a massive place like Skyrim, you wouldn't be the ONLY one brave enough to go into dungeons, right?

There should also be occasional adventurers in the dungeons, and these should actually be people living in the cities.
If their disposition to you is generally good, you fight with them (in the dungeon only) or if they REALLY hate you, they'll attack you. Otherwise, they continue on doing their random business and slaying trolls and whatnot.

And of course, they won't go near the part of the dungeon where there are your quest-related things, like bosses and treasure. They'll just kill a few goblins, pick up a little loot, then walk back home like a boss.

So long as the random travelers don't get killed by the wildlife like in OB. I'm all for more animal life (especially more passive animal life... why does every last mudcrab need to pick a fight with me?), and I would love to see more human activity on the roads, but they need to max the level of creatures in many areas except for certain spots where the player can encounter tougher situations. I don't want traveling merchants getting mauled by grizzly bears.

Well I imagine they would make it so animals can't go on the roads.

....I find traveling overland in Oblivion even now (many replays later) to be really pretty, in a "amazing landscapes" kind of way. Walking through the woods, viewing the scenic panoramas, with leaping deer in the background.....

:shrug:


Really interesting how different people can see the same things, but see something completely different.

I think Bethesda said that the main roads would be safer than in Oblivion, so you and travelling NPCs would not be constantly pestered by suicidal animals.

Why wouldn't animals be able to go on roads? I don't mind them being on roads; I just don't want high-level creatures mauling NPC's like they could in OB after you leveled up.



Let's hope this is true.

I also think it looks nice, especially Blackwood.Yes, it's mostly generic, but I still like it.

Well they do call Skyrim's highest mountain the "Throat of the World".

They should also de-aggro a lot of animals too, and make them more escape-based rather than attack-based. I don't think a wolf would attack you on first sight.

Also, wounded animals shouldn't even fight at all.

Man... would be so awesome... I would like to be able to start my own bandit settlement and ambush travellers and caravans! FEAR THE NODDLES!

The game has built-in random number generator support, so they should use it for this. Most "predatory" wildlife should have a "chance" to attack, and the more "appetizing" you look, the higher the odds of them getting aggressive. The closer you get, the more defensive and threatened they feel, until it pushes them over the edge to either flee or attack, depending on your "threat" versus their aggression. Rather than making it a "black and white" script where if you exceed X amount of threat, they will always automatically charge you, use a small random modifier to the value for each individual creature as it spawns, so one might be relatively passive and another will decide to "go for it".

That would also affect passive wildlife, where as long as you maintain enough distance and aren't "threatening", they tend to keep a wary eye on you, but go about their business. Draw a weapon, or approach more than about a step or two, and they bolt. Have a low enough Threat level (playing a totally passive character) and you can eventually walk right up to them, with sufficient time and patience.

The uncertainty factor is what keeps the game interesting.

I think Oblivion worked really well for it's time, and seeing as Skyrim newer and better and including help from the radiant story system, I trust it will be awesome for it's time as well.

I do believe that the world of skyrim will be very much "more realistically alive", realism has always been a priority for bgs in tes games. And now, that they have the tech and tools to do so. Im pretty confident that we will see a lot more realism as far as this thread is speaking to. In the pocast with todd and GI he explains how he is going for a much more realistic world outside of the main storyline in the day to day world. I am really excited to see just how this will all turn out. I do not think we will be dissapointed in back to back games....*cough* *oblivion*....

Well, I hope Bethesda does focus more on atmosphere.

While I'm pretty sure that Bethesda won't fail us on this subject, if they read this, they'll be reminded.

Big releases these days tend to have simple yet big things missing.

I think it would be really sweet (depending on the NPC cap), to see merchants/craftsmen from small villages visit the cities during the day then go back to their towns during the day. Seeing people steadily trickle in and out of city gates would be a great scene.

Aren't the cities a separate map? Don't you have to manually load them? Wouldn't that be weird to see merchants vaporizing at the doors?

People might get mad at me for suggesting this, a little too fallout, but why not include random encounters as well as having travelers on the road. I felt they added alot of life and fun in FO3. I agree about adventurers in dungeons, they were in Oblivion but the chances of finding one were very low, and they didn't venture into the dungeon. I would love occasionally finding a adventurer or group of them in a dungeon and a option to join them to the end of the dungeon and maybe a backstory to it.

Nehrim, an awesome conversion of TES IV: Oblivion, had a lot of liveliness and hand-crafted landscapes.