Well, (again), this is something that I feel like TIE did very well (I'm going to MAKE all of you play with it! ). In addition to traveling merchants (who traveled with an entourage for protection), you encountered mainly skilled adventurers on the road, people like you who aren't afraid of a little excitement. It really added a lot of life to the world.

I think I've met 3 non-guard NPC's on the roads between Cheydinhal and Chorrol, so they certainly exist.

What bothered me is that they were all travelling alone. They would appear much less suicidal if they travelled in groups, and maybe brought a warrior or two with them.

Countess Alessia Caro is the only NPC that I know of that travels with a group, but she only travels with one bodyguard and her advisor. Not a group fit for protecting the Countess of Leyawiin.

I think that 3 NPC's, one of them armed and armoured, should be the standard group of travellers, merchants and nobles should take entire caravans and retinues with them.

The lack of traffic on the roads is annoying. I remember seeing this "http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/art/mwpc/mwind_web24B.jpg" of Morrowind back in 2000, and was impressed by the caravan on it. Took another 8 years until they really implented caravans in Fallout 3, heh.

Hopefully the http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/art/mwpc/mwind_web23B.jpg.

I value "life" in a game a lot, and fortunately they improved that greatly in their past 3 games. Morrowind was really bad in that regard, NPCs stood at the same place 24/7, Oblivion was a noticeable improvement and Fallout 3 improved even more. So I'm hopeful regarding this in their next game.

What annoys me the most with the roads in Morrowind and Oblivion is the high rate of enemy attacks. I want the roads to be peaceful, having a monster spawn point next to it is a no-no.

:o

Why, Bethesda... WHY!?

I really hope they stop showing us the likes of this. This reminds me of Oblivion's e3 demo. Don't show us stuff if you don't know if it'll be implemented!

They already have, or can you think of a moment during the Fallout 3 development when they did?

These are the screens from Morrowind's development that really kill me.

http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/screenshots/News/23922/4
http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/screenshots/News/23922/21

...R...Real-time gondolas, Bethesda? WHY DO YOU TAUNT ME SO??

I recall them saying in one of the interviews that they aren't showing off "the new game" because they don't want to piss off fans by showing stuff that's not going to be implemented.

I'm glad that Todd mentioned in the recent http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-16-bethesdas-todd-howard-interview?page=1 that he wants to hold off on revealing their current project because they know that it's still prone to changes. After realizing that their Oblivion E3 trailer was all completely scripted BS and people still don't forgive them for it, they want to hold off on making promises too early.

I think it's a wise move, considering that it's befallen them with pretty much every game (Daggerfall's interesting wilderness, 3DFX-independent Redguard, Morrowind's moving gondolas, Oblivion's complete erasure of Sutch). It means that we won't have as much beta material to compare to the finalg ame. More importantly for you and me Hircine, it means nobody will take us seriously when we start a conspiracy about Bethesda turning Skyrim into a jungle. :sadvaultboy:


Yeah yeah yeah. Francesco's added roving bands of adventurers and the like who would raid dungeons and everything. Unfortunately he also added groups of Imperial Legion soldiers so I could never take things seriously.

What do you mean, unpopulated roads? I am constantly assaulted by bandits wearing full sets of Daedric Armor, rabid, starving animals that attack on sight, and groups of Storm Atronachs and Spider Daedra every day.

Jokes aside, I agree. While I do not want packed roads (I like things quiet sometimes), I think that there should be caravans (to rob) or at least wagons/carriages with peasants and nobility every once in a while. So I can rob them too.

But I would want them to be extremely cowardly, or have a pack of guards with them, as I do not want a random boar to kill off the entire group before I ever see them.

I don't know.

Besides the real-time gondolas and hooded cloaks, all those screenshots look like stuff that did make it into Morrowind, only taken from really flattering angles.

I remember very populated roads and streets in Morrowind. It's just that all the stuff was standing still.

I don't know about that-- even with Starfire's NPC additions, the world never felt that full to me. It makes sense-- if you overcrowd, two NPCs might start trying to walk in the same space and glitch out. But it's still disappointing.

Those dastardly deadlines. My guess is it was still glitchy or something by the time of release. They just had to cut it.
However with the Caravans in Fallout 3, I expect we can see them in TES5.
I wonder what else in Fallout 3 we can expect to see in TES5.


You forgot the Caravans. It also seems we were supposed to have realtime(well not exactly realtime) conversations with NPCs.

Realtime Gondolas, I KNEW something was wrong the first time I used one.

I love the improvements to the HUD. That is, the way the HUD was actually in the game not the HUD in the screenshots.

Look at http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/screenshots/News/23922/19.

I wasn't really all that hyped about Fallout 3, so I never really looked into it during devlopment. :shrug:


I don't get it. Why not just show us what IS definatley going to be implemented? Seems rather silly. but, I would rather see nothing at, in the ways of demos, than lieing rubbish.

Because anything can change, be it because of deadlines, performance issues or whatever. You think they showed something at E3 thinking "hey, lets show a bunch of stuff that won't be in the game!"?

After roughly two years of development I'd assume Bethesda has no intentions of completely scrapping/redoing anything at this point. But who knows? Okay fine. Todd, has your team at least picked out a nice icon for the game executable yet?

They didn't actually show a gameplay trailer for like a year after announcing Fallout 3. A few screenshots, but that was it. As for the second point, nothing is "definite" in development, and features, no matter how excited the developers are about them, can be cut at any time. It isn't the developers lying outright, they're just showing how the game is at that point in development. They can't predict which features are necessarily going to get the axe.

To be honest things like real-time travel in gondolas sound good on paper, but after using the features several times you would probably be asking for a way to speed-up the process. I don't miss such features.

Caravans from Fallout 3 improved the immersion for me, though. I like to see some activity going around here and there. We definitely need more adventurers, pilgrims and merchants travelling on the roads, eating and sleeping in the inns etc. That won't be achieved with sth like ~1500 NPCs ingame, though. They need to at least double that number (and it may still not be enough). Those NPCs don't have to have unique voice-overed dialogue etc. They just need to do SOMETHING so that the player is not the only person that is travelling in the world.

I've seen caravans while traveling the wilderness in Morrowind. They just don't follow routes along the road. They stand in one place, instead.

The point is that, in Morrowind, there really are a lot of unique people to run into while on the roads between cities. Yes, it would be better if they were actually moving from point a to point b instead of forever standing in on spot.

But, it's better than the "ghost roads" of Oblivion or the "not even any roads" of Daggerfall, imo.

The lack of real-time gondolas and boats and silt striders does make me really sad, though. SOMEONE MOD IT IN!!!

I never met one. :sadvaultboy:

Cool.

There ARE imperial soldiers that patrol the roads, Mai'q runs from Leyawin to Anvil all the time, The Black Horse Courier, and a few other NPCs travel the road. One is a Dark elf that keeps threatening me.

"If you've got to travel, by the Nine Divines, STAY ON THE ROADS! There were sightings, you see... the Daedra..."

... But I guess that doesn't explain why no one travels after the Oblivion crisis. Post-war paranoia?

There's Ida Ottus who I always see going from IC to Anvil, there's a Khajiit woman who keeps going to IC. There's Rochelle Bantien, I've seen her traveling to Cheydinhal. There are plenty of others but I'm usually off in the wilderness somewhere.

I've seen people from Skingrad in IC also, and I think I saw Quill-Weave somewhere besides Anvil... can't think of where though.

There should be some traveling merchants, some bards, and some wanderers who never stay in one place for very long in the next game, just to spice things up a bit.

Hamsmaago, those gondolas where a part of abots waterlife mod.

Poor Bandits with nobody to rob... And the only time that someone walks past them who isn't an imperial guard is when it's the Champion of Cyrodiil.

I don't recall any legion posts along the roads either? Seems like a must have to me :shrug: