The title of the thread is just a joke.

Now, I remember when I played Fallout 3 and NV, I often encounter an NPC, already know his name before talking to him (because the names shows), and while talking to him I have to ask him "who are you", which makes me wonder what's the point of it if I already know him by name.

Wouldn't it be better if all NPC's start with no name at all or just a generic name, and after you talked to him and introduced each other, THEN the name shows up permanently when you point at him. Like in Fallout you can have generic NPC's and unique NPC's, but you wouldn't know whether he's unique or generic until you talk to him.

This way opens up some more opportunities. Like in a quest, instead of giving you a name it gives you a description of the person, so even though the quest marker will still point you straight to the person, you aren't 100% sure whether that's the guy until you have talked to him - which is how it works in real life. When there's no quest marker, such as when you first talk to an NPC and he says if you need something to find John Doe, he's the guy in the green hat and red robe downstairs. And then you go downstairs, you see a bunch of people, but you have to look for the one with green hat and red robe. This way you are forced to notice how the NPC looks like rather than just putting your cursor on everybody

Also, during exploring (rather than questing) it forces you to speak to every NPC to find the unique ones, and since it's repetitive you would try to find the person who look unique to avoid speaking to everybody. I think doing this adds to the feel of a real town/community.

Any thoughts?

BTW, I think the conversations in Oblivion are too short. Remember how much you had to read in Morrowind? Of course the Morrowind style doesn't fit with complete voice-over. But I like the Fallout style with long conversations and if you pursue to the end you get some bonuses. It feels like Bethesda learned a lot from making Fallout series and I hope they can apply the new knowledge to Skyrim.

BTW2, it seems like in any elderscrolls/fallout series made by bethesda, the NPC's always start the conversation. In other words, they are the ones to speak first after you click him. We should have more instances where you are the one who speak first. I.E, you click a person, screen turns to conversation mode, he's giving you some attention by looking at you (doesn't have to stop what he's doing though), and your choices pop up before he speaks.

I mostly like your suggestion, but with an alteration to this part. You should be given a name AND a description in most cases, so that you can ask around to see if someone knows where the person your looking for is.

Honestly I think that's a pretty good idea, there isn't really a good reason you know everyone's name when you look at them and this could increase the immersion by a lot. If someone has a low disposition towards you they probably wouldn't even tell you their name, just like random strangers in real life probably.

I already added that to the post lol

eh? your edit-timestap indicates you added that after I posted. 3 minutes after I posted.

I believe this is how it was in either Arcanum or Planescape, at least in certain cases. I'm not 100% sure, it's been a while since I've played them.

Yeah, I had the same suggestion basically as you have here, that marker should only give you a general location that the quest giver gave you. Also the compass should not show the marker, that's really the only big problem I had with the system is that most of the time instead of looking around at the world you were making sure that the marker was in the center of your compass.

Eh, thats a Fallout feature, not a TES feature and i hope it stays that way.

I'm assuming you mean having generic and unique NPC's? Still, you aren't supposed to know the name until you have talked.

I don't mind the generic people you can't talk to properly in Fallout as long as they stay in Fallout. I love being able to speak to EVERY character in Elder Scrolls.

Not knowing an NPC's name before you talk to him/her is a "Fallout feature"? :ermm: I'd rather call it more a realistic and interesting way of handling NPC interactions and dialogue. I love how anything even remotely related to Fallout will at some point be shot down for being Fallout and not TES instead of perhaps acknowledging the system regardless of what game it's found in.

no, he means that NPC's that are generic and not given names is a fallout feature.

I like the part aboutnot knowing their name toll they tell you. Or maybe someone else could telli their name and point at then? Also make all npc Unique and u can't talk to them k thx pl0x

Ah. In that case, I can certainly see someone not wanting that. I disagree, but I can see the other side, too.

Yes, nothing screams living world like NPCs you can't interact with....

Its been a really long time, but isnt this how it was in Daggerfall?

You were told: so-and-so is in that temple, and I dont think they had instant names above them in that game.

In any case, yes! I like your idea. If it doesnt become a hassle. It should never be too hard to find someone.

The thing is, people want more NPC's. If everybody has name, then the problem with more NPCs won't just be technical limitation, but coming up with all those names. I guess they have the name generator or something

In order to see someone's name in Daggerfall, you switched into look mode and clicked on them.

That's the thing though. People seem to assume that by adding generic NPCs they A) won't have names, which could easily be solved by a name generator, and B.) they won't be able to be interacted with. Think about B for a minute. How often did any normal NPC in Oblivion say anything that could even remotely be considered unique, aside from maybe a greeting or introduction? Why not have these generic NPCs have generic things to say just like those of Oblivion? They'd be rather boring and likely say many of the same things, but the way I see it, neither boring nor repetitive NPCs are anything new to The Elder Scrolls.

Edit: damn unintentional emoticon..

here's some fun notes:

1.Morrowind used an NPC's class and factions to assign it responses to topics. Only a few NPC's had unique responses to certain topics.

2. Daggerfall had randomly generated NPC's for nearly everything.

Well compared to most other games the NPCs in Oblivion had varying things to say. You could play the entire game through and still find something unique one of the NPCs said that you hadn't heard before. That's one thing that got me with Morrowind, they idled at generic conversation...

Yes, I'm aware. But, in any case, I didn't mean to ramble in a topic where such ramblings don't belong.