I was not a fan of the change from Morrowind to Oblivion where smugglers and bandits lost their unique names, but I accepted it for the sake of respawning enemies. However, I will certainly not be pleased if I see a bunch of "Solitude Citizens" walking around. I would say I'd just kill them off, but then they would just respawn. :shakehead:

I think the idea is to propagate the fact that tamriel is a big word. Morrowind has a lot of npcs, but there were only like 4000 people on the island of vvardenfell in total, that's a pretty tiny world.

Go out onto a city street. Do you see a name pop up above the head of every person you walked by. Can you just start up a conversation with any random person on the street?


People living in cities have their own stuff to take care of, and they probably have their virtual lives to worry about. Despite what you might think, with Bethesda having a limited VA budget they can only afford to do so much dialogue... by having "generic" or "unnamed" npcs, they can put more work into voicing people who actually have interesting things to say rather that giving useless dialogue to a bunch of nobodies who just aimlessly walk around on the street.

Yeah this is crap! Let's boycott Skyrim! Who's with me?!..... Oh... Nobody.. okay nevermind.

I completely understand the reasoning behind it, but that does not mean I like it. I mean, I love Elder Scrolls. But I am allowed a few annoyances, I think.

As for this realistic argument that keeps getting posted... That is UI. You also don't see "plastic cup" appear when you look in your cupboard, you don't see your health, and you don't see a skill increase or level up message after you have accomplished various things and improved your technique. :shrug:

That will be dreadful and completely unnecessary. Farmers in Oblivion had names, as did everyone in the towns and cities, excluding guards. Why would it be different for Skyrim? I'd like to see a source proving you didn't completely make that up.

In the latest GameInformer, the player kills a farmer, and she has a name...

That's good.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1240855-november-game-informer/page__view__findpost__p__18829649

I describe the scene briefly there.

I didnt mind to much in fallout, in oblivion only guards and bandits, and that one blue team guy who hated you, and thats fine. What gets me is that they can give them AI, give them a inventory (even just the generic random close and lvl gold), make sure there face wasn't randomly generated to look like a potato, and give them a house to sleep in, but not type "todd" or "Jarl" or any other name in the little NPC box. its not that hard. if no one else will, ill mod in names, for 300+ NPCs if i have to. cuz its so GD easy to do.

but i do like the idea of there names not appearing untill they introduce themselves/there famous/someone told you about them (Dark brotherhood target, a quest told you to find them, ect.)...
why hasent someone at BGS thought of that yet?

It doesn't bother me :/

First time I played Fallout 3, being given a squirrel on a stick or whatever by an unnamed citizen was a bit jarring, but never really noticed after a while.
The thing is, though, Megaton quickly lost any interest or value outside of trading and stashing. With the radiant story quite possibly providing random quests for a very long time, from changeable sources, it could be that a home town in Skyrim could be somewhere you spend a lot more time, get more emotionally invested in, if you will always (or for longer) be able to find something to do there, generic citizens have the potential to remain jarring for a lot longer in this game. We shall see.