"As a game that's more or less an open sandbox, players will be able to perform free-form
activities like cooking, woodcutting, mining, and blacksmithing."

"More or less" an open sandbox? That doesn't sound very reassuring.

I think when they say more or less, they are thinking compared to say, Minecraft, which is a pure, plotless sandbox, Skyrim still is going to have a main plot.

That's a very good thing, I agree. But the less essential NPCs should have more to say than just 'rumors' and '[insert the settlement's name here]. In Morrowind, people new to the setting could gain a handful of basic knowledge about the place, the lore, cultures and its people (in addition, a few local wisdom) just from talking to the townsfolk even though the NPCs sometimes got a bit uncharacteristically too friendly in places (heck, why does this foul mouthed Camonna Tong thug suddenly being nice to my Argonian? Random.) Queries about races and general views from/towards them in the province, the economy, local wisdom, politics, important figures, etc. from the locals would really add much to the 'living the gameworld' experience. Though I'm of the opinion that not simply everyone should be very talkative with you. I think that mostly those that had high enough disposition with you should be the very talkative ones, (and you should be capable of befriending just about any folk, of course). Ultimately it would get quite repetitive somewhat if they had the large amount of topics but handled it the Morrowind's way (and quite a serious hindrance, to boot). A good mix between Morrowind's number of topics and Oblivion's dialog trees are the way to go.

And to be fair, I think maybe part of the reasoning why on Oblivion there's not much to introduce to your character from the townsfolk is because your not playing a "stranger" type of character, but most likely as a citizen of Cyrodiil (or not a total newbie to the province if you will), unlike the case of Morrowind where one of the touted main selling point of the game was to 'explore this strange, alien land and all the yadda yadda'.

tl;dr: most NPCs should have more than a few things to say, but not everything at once being shoved at you. And when I talk to any of the commoners of Riften I'd expect them to be more than willing to share a lot of things/boasting about their fisheries, the smoking process, the kind of fishes they uses, how do they taste like, who's running the industry, why theirs are the best, etc. And I really need a good sleep.

Well I'll have to see it in action to actually see what is considered a less essential Npc in Skyrim. After all, the radiant story, could maybe pick up a former non-essential npc and make give him something to say, simple because he just became a pawn in a generated questline. In any case, a lot of the information gathering seems to have been centered around the tavern in skyrim, so I think info gathering about the surroundings, is probably going to be by overhearing npcs talking to each other, and although they possibly can't say a lot to the PC, they can probably still talk quite a bit with each other.

lol did you even read the post right?
it NEVER said they were "generic NPCs". All it said is that they wouldn't say that much. That's all. They'll probably have a name anyways

For those hoping generic npc will have rumors and they will be happy, there is no dialogue tree, there is no list at all, you click on them and they speak(like so many other rpgs). You have no option to pick "rumors" they just say what ever line they say and that is it. I like this much more than having to click on NPC, zoom in, then click on rumors just to hear there one damn line, its a great idea.

And why do people care about names so much, I always though it was odd that I new every ones name and is more realistic if I don't. Oh look there is a farmer, a miller,etc Not oh look there John smith and I have never seen the person in my life.

I hope this is how it would pan out

Why overload something that is not needed?

No, it still brings up the options. It just doesn't have the weird zooming. My guess is you'll just hear their greeting in dialogue before clicking an option, like every other game.

Somewhat off-topic, and responding to a part of Kefka.'s post that I somehow missed earlier: yes, I think the whole knowing people's name beforehand is weird. You should only learn it after they introduced themselves to you, or you could learn it from others who mentioned their name to you as they describe the appearance of said person they were talking about (or maybe you overheard it when they were greeting each other). Otherwise they should have generic labels on them before you knowing their names.

Well that's just what I'd like to see though. But if it doesn't turn out like that, then no biggie.

What I would have said.

Only difference is that now we don't have that face close-up freeze camera.

There is no zooming in anymore so even the "generic" npc's should have dialogue choices just like the important npc's. This isn't fallout.

Just read OPM and it's off for everyone, not just rumour people. Thank heavens. It was one of the old school RPG elements that made little sense, why does everything have to freeze? Are bartenders now incapable of pulling a pint while talking? ppftttt.

As others have said, it seems a good feature, it's not cutting content, just saving pointless menus and wasted time. I don't want to have a face freeze, click rumours and have them say something I've already heard, that's not classic RPG, it's just a throwback to when everyone had something to say, completely infeasible when we have voice acting.

I may be wrong but I believe that is what was said about geniric npcs, that just say whatever it is when you click on them, the are no dialogue trees for them. There is for important npcs only. Having no tree means no tree, in OB rumors was a 1 level tree.

Many rpgs include Fallout 3 due this, you click on them and they say somthing. No dialouge tree. Why would they have even brought this up in the mag if it was the same as Oblivion.

When you clicked background, they told you their backstory, like how they worked for Hlaalu and got fired or whatever, the fact they said the samestuff was just to make lore finding easier, voice acting immediately makes it impossible to do this

to be honest, I think it will be okay, I mean npc's in Oblivion didn't really say anything of intrest, just the same old stuff over and over again. Instead give certain npc's allot more dialogue! well thats my opinion atleast

This. This sounds bad at first, but in reality most NPCs in Oblivion had only two topics anyway (Rumors and whatever city you happened to be in), and both were basically rumors topics. Since conversation is now in real-time, the NPC just says their rumor right when you talk to them.

Although, I am a little bit disappointed to lose the interesting little spiel about themselves every NPC had when you first talked to them, but I can live with it.

Most people are reffering to Morrowind, where each character had their own back story, and depending on what group, they said different things (a Hlaalu person had differing opinions to a Telvanni) Oblivions voice acting neutered this option though, and the little intro about themselves is realistic, as they are meant to be welcoming you to town, I'll miss that part about OB

I don't know what not having zoom in and dialouge choices have to do with each other, I would say with out zoom in, there is even less reason to have a dialouge tree of 1(rumors) when they can just say the rumor right away. Much better to me.

Morrowind actually had justification for the dialogue tree, Oblivion didn't, this is why I prefer partial voice acting but mostly text RPG's

Also with voice acting people say less because in real life people say less. What I mean by this back in the day with out voice work, people would write these thing for npcs to "say", but when voice work started coming in and you could hear all this stuff you would realize it does not sound natural for everyone to go on and on like that. The way people speak and the way dialouge is written is often very different and untill the voice acting era this was not noticed.

Yes MW had more dialouge, but some of it(not all) was because of what I described above.


I like voice acting, I don't play mods with out voice acting and I would not play a new open world rpg with out full voice acting.

I meant that important npc's will still have a list of dialogue options to choose from so "generic npc's should too.

The NPC's in Oblivion were shallow in ther dialog anyways.

If they have only one thing to say then no. And I would rather them use that extra voice work for quests givers, radiant story,etc. Than an extra rumor for "farmer".

Morrowind had a larger range of dialogue, not just more dialogue, Daggerfall's dialogue was the most realistic to date actually, (you could ask anyone anything, but they probably won't know), but I'd like written dialogue (because then we won't be constantly reminded that Bethesda can only afford around eight voice actors )