Merchants are dead, should I start over? : V - Skyrim

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:42 pm

Are you talking about that scripted murder in Markath? Because other than that I haven't seen a single NPC doing anything other than their daily routines of mindlessly walking around town and to and from their "jobs".

@Cascinova

Yeah so have I.... Just not inside of WHITERUN. That first little town you get to in the main quest has been attacked like 30 times, so has Solitude. But I have *never* seen a dragon inside the town of whiterun.

I've been attacked by a dragon when I fast-traveled inside Whiterun. It could have been some sort of bug though, because some NPCs didn't seem to react (although it was night and not many were around that I could see), and when me and a couple of guards had took the dragon down I didn't absorb its soul. The corpse (not skeleton) just lies there forever now.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:12 pm

I like Winterhold more, the house is really nice there, it's has more merchants than Whiterun. I like to be close to my high king, Stormcloak.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:24 pm

i mostly just see 4 thalmor goons beating up some unarmed prisoner out in the boonies at like 12 am when im wandering around.

THIS DOESNT CONCERN YOU CITIZEN.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:23 pm

Yeah, the owner of the General Goods store in Whiterun has been missing for several in-game weeks and I fear he may have died.

I don't know why, but he annoys me to no end, when i complete all the game content i'll kill him myself.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:30 pm

You probably disturbed the balance. AFAIK Dragons can attack cities.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 8:42 pm

I don't know why, but he annoys me to no end, when i complete all the game content i'll kill him myself.

The guy is reallllly annoying.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 6:25 pm

It didn't occur to me that the npcs were protecting each other.

Even though a few dead merchants is an inconvenience, the consequences/A.I. in this game are damn awesome.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 8:43 am

This is kind of a weird topic, but somehow the Warmaiden, Drunken Horseman, General goods vendor, lady outside warmaiden have all gone missing on my 60 hour playthrough file, and it's really annoying me. It stinks knowing that I should be able to buy/sell from tons of people in whiterun, and have a house in the midst of it.

Is there a good solution to this? Start over? What would you do?

This probably happened because I decided to take on all of the Whiterun guards at once and assassinate them/hit and run. It was fun, but not sure if it was worth it in hindsight...

I had this happen to me too, on PS3.

Some jerk dragon decided to Riverwood, and he killed Hod before I killed him. Now Hod will help you make a ton of money, so I didn't want him dead. Needless to say, I had been halfway around the world and gained 2 levels before I realized he was dead, and had to go back to an earlier save. :/

I mean, some kind of respawn timer would be friggin' nice.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:54 pm

I didnt think the Ai was that smart until I found a some High elves (3) that were escorting some official or to a town near buy. I talked to the high elves and they got very rude with me and challenged me so I killed them. The offical after awhile started walking down the path. After about 5 minutes I headed that way myself and found the poor official being killed by 2 bandits. I looted his corps a few seconds later

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 7:06 pm

Theoretically other NPCs are supposed to take over those merchants shops eventually. At least that was part of the Radiant AI package we were promised before release. Someone else will have to confirm whether this actually happens or not.

Also, there are other towns with other merchants and houses to buy, so you could always just pack up your character and move.

I believe this was only meant for certain shops, like the shop owner in Riverwood and his sister. I think the community just inferred that it would work for every shop owner, which is ridiculous since in a game with full voice acting there's really no way to do this properly.

edit: I could be wrong of course. I've never actually killed a shop owner in my game, but I've seen a lot of people on these forums complaining that they never get replaced.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:16 am

I believe this was only meant for certain shops, like the shop owner in Riverwood and his sister. I think the community just inferred that it would work for every shop owner, which is ridiculous since in a game with full voice acting there's really no way to do this properly.

edit: I could be wrong of course. I've never actually killed a shop owner in my game, but I've seen a lot of people on these forums complaining that they never get replaced.

it wouldnt be hard. just name the character something generic like "merchant" and there are plenty of generic lines as well. alot of shop keepers all say "some call it junk but i call them treasures" and "take a look"

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:02 pm

it wouldnt be hard. just name the character something generic like "merchant" and there are plenty of generic lines as well. alot of shop keepers all say "some call it junk but i call them treasures" and "take a look"

That would work I guess, but personally, I'd consider that not doing it properly, or at least not in line with how Bethesda made it seem it would happen. I guess that's a matter of opinion though.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 7:22 pm

Yeah except that WHITERUN is a town that doesn't actually exist in the "wild" (ie. you have to open the door and go "into" whiterun) so there's no possible way for dragons to attack the interior of whiterun. At least there hasn't been a single attack in whiterun in my 70 hours of playing.

As much as I love your name, you're wrong. I"ve had a dragon attack inside Whiterun. His skeleton is right outside Breezehome's door.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:38 pm

Are you talking about that scripted murder in Markath? Because other than that I haven't seen a single NPC doing anything other than their daily routines of mindlessly walking around town and to and from their "jobs".

@Cascinova

Yeah so have I.... Just not inside of WHITERUN. That first little town you get to in the main quest has been attacked like 30 times, so has Solitude. But I have *never* seen a dragon inside the town of whiterun.

I have had a Dragon in White run, hell of a fight running up and down after it

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:49 pm

I had a dragon attack solitude while i was invading it with the storm cloaks! it was hard to kill because of those damn imperial guards! getting in the way and such.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:22 pm

If shopkeepers leave because there's no guards to protect them, then it would be cool if the shops could change hands, like some hoodlum guy takes over an old store selling stolen goods.

Or maybe you could get some quest to go out in the world and convince people to join the guards

I was at a small mill village and got stuck in a random dragon attack. It ate the 3-4 villagers before I could kill it, now there's no one around at all and hasn't been for a while.

I also had a quest to gather some bear pelts for some lady, who promptly got mauled to death by a bear 3 minutes later

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 10:23 am

warmaiden died for me too, and i've never intentionally broken the law.

I have, though, had odd WTF moments when guards approach me with a medium sized bounty to pay off. For mysterious reasons. I wish the guards would give me some hint as to why, when this happens. Even just something vague like "wanted for theft" or something along those lines.

Ever notice that if you zone while an NPC is in the middle of a dialogue script, the NPC zones with you? I wonder if I teleported her across the map somewhere. Would be a pretty guaranteed death as she tried to path back to whiterun.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 9:22 pm

There are definitely bugs in the game, and I am not saying that NPC's just leave because there are no guards, I think they actually killed. But I have noticed dead bodies before for no apparent reason. For example when leaving a certain guild , there are always 1 or 2 dead bodies with no clothes laying by the door for some odd reason.

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 8:30 pm

I haven't had anything this drastic. The worst I've experience is a shop randomly closed at 3pm. ?(?益??) I have things to sell dammit!

» Sat Dec 03, 2011 5:34 pm

I have 2 play throughs going on right now:

1 as Nord warrior
1 as nord assassin thief

The interesting thing is they are so different. Things I expected to happen from my warrior play through did not happen with my thief. There are just truley random events. On the very same road that was safe for my warrior my thief was killed by a very pissed off Imperial with some grudge for example.