Yes one introduction, one other topic....
I left X to come live here in Y.. is it not lovely, I live here in X with Y, is it not lovely.
Not exactly based on class, race, ability or even very unique, in the most part.
Few references to outside going ons, little about the world, or how they live, what they do.

However I was refering to Morrowinds, where based on faction, station or class.
A character would reveal a topic based on said class, station, race, or faction one that was tied to them or others belong to or having a view of said topics.
That is what I meant by saying Oblivion did not even have that.
I may not have been clear in my langauge, I would kindly suggest however not being so caustic when you post.

They also breathed character into NPCs in other ways, like AI. A thief is on the prowl at night, Shopkeepers close up at night and go to bed while others will go to the Inn for a drink. Some will fling out racist remarks instead of having a dialog option that tells you they dont like Bosmer, or they go right up to other NPCs and tell them they dont like them or that they do like them without having a text tree to tell you who they dislike in town.

You can pass NPCs having a discussion about how the Fighters Guild is recruiting instead of there just being a topic asking about the Fighters Guild. Theres also quite a bit of story and lore going on during conversations too, like whats going on in Morrowind and Skyrim and how its affecting trade and whatnot.

Shivering Isles especially had some unique characters.

A large group of Oblivion NPCs (especially the city based ones) had an unique greeting when you first met them, and a city topic. So yeah they did have something interesting to say, but not much. But I think I'd prefer the Fallout 3 method here, with the addition of more generic NPCs (would be nice if they still had unique names though, instead of 'Megaton settler') in favour of having a smaller selection of much more indepth characters in the towns. Megaton was great, especially the NPC to NPC conversations between the non-generic NPCs, and their awareness of the things that happened in their town as evident in some conversations.

Hypno Toad said,
Really, walk into the imperial city in Oblivion and talk to any given NPC. 80% of them have absolutely nothing to say, the only thing unique about them is the house they sleep in.

Seti18 - No. When was the last time you walked into the Imperial City or anyone city in Oblivion and talked to anyone? Please, do so... now. You're just wrong. I don't know how to prove it to you without you going to the Imperial City and seeing for yourself, but you're wrong, period.

Seti.. Hypno is right and you know it.

There we go, spent 20 minutes walking around the imperial city. First thing I noticed is that there's four guards to every three civilians. I don't even know how that's economically feasible. Some guard-based economy perhaps?

Talked to roughly 13 people or so out on the street (the streets were pretty quiet, nothing but the sound of 6 guards per section shuffling around aimlessly). Each one has one unique thing to say, usually about one or two sentences. The info they give is totally irrelevant, "OH, you and your husband came from Morrowind? Thats amazing, how life changing that is for me, Im glad I asked you that instead of speaking to somebody that had something useful to say."

So yeah, each one may one one unique sentence, but this is information thats not at all relevant to me. I just barged into somebody's house, and they talked to me about mother mara. These are some really hospitable people! I just walked into their house without invitation, and spoke to them for 5 seconds about some useless topic. Incredible. Oh, but at least that one sentence is unique! Rather than having any characters that are actually interesting and talkative, theres 50 people that have completely irrelevant information for me. I'm being pretty sarcastic by the way. In conclusion, these people may have one thing to say to you, but none of it is of any relevance to me, its such a huge waste of resources. Why should there be 300+ NPCs that have crap-all to say to you, when there can be 70 NPCs that have a lot of interesting stuff to say? Not to mention if you oust those one-liner walking machines you can actually put in realistic and numerous city dwellers that will actually make a city street feel like a city street.

I can relate to how you feel however I don't share your position on the changes. Many games keep their depth of dialogue (and have arguably more depth than Elder Scrolls games) and limit the dialogue per NPC.

One example of this is Mass Effect 1 and 2. There are many what you might call 'drone' NPCs that don't have deep dialogue. They keep the atmosphere and make for believable environments. This does not detract from the well written depth of the NPCs that do allow you to talk more.

I believe that the OP and those who sympathize with him are disillusioned by the idea that is being implemented here and not the actual product of the idea. Once the game properly populates the world with believable people and environments they might find that the sacrifice of small talk and "rumors" options were a proper trade-off. The NPCs that matter might be a better representation of "NPC depth" than ever before found in an Elder Scrolls game, or at least rival the written form of NPCs found in previous installations of the series before voice acting (which is what I personally hope for).

Honestly if you really look at most "old school hardcoe" RPGs that's the way it worked too.

I consider Planescape: Torment to be the gold standard for that side of the genre, the 3d isometric hardcoe RPG. It was mostly dialogue-based, it involved a lot of stat-based switches and changes to plot paths, it relied on a lot of "blind" choices, all defining features of the hardcoe RPG.

Most of the hive was just "Hive Dweller" "Hive Thug" "Painted harlet" and so on.

Now thanks to the way Oblivion et. al. work they are given individual names but that doesn't change the fact Andy Argonian and Kelly the Khajit are really both just "Hive Dweller".

All RPGs are built around five types of NPC really. You have the townspeople, that usually only have a line or two of dialogue, sometimes it's a hint, sometimes it's a rumor list, sometimes it's just 'how are ye?'. You have the generic enemy, they don't say much, they just instant-aggro. You have the minor NPC, they play part of a quest, have a bit of backstory, you can explore some dialogue options with them. You have the major NPC, who often has massive conditional dialogue trees. Then you have the merchant.

That's the building block set of every RPG out there really. What makes a world expansive is use of rumor lists and minor branching dialogue and exclaimatory dialogue to make players THINK that all your townspeople are minor NPCs and make them think the minor NPCs are major NPCs.

[sarcasm]You obviously don't understand immershun, relevance doesn't matter- it's that it's all unique while being irrelevant and asinine.[/sarcasm]

Well...and actually, if you walk around a mall and listen to what's being talked about, it's also alarmingly possible that the realism of all this insipidly random "but unique" conversation could be much higher than many of us are willing to admit.

Well yeah to the last part, but people bantering on the street may just be saying "wha wha, wha-wha WHA wha wha" because so much of it would have nothing to do with me.

On that note, all the conversations in Oblivion are so stilted. I'll tell you what's immersion-breaking, it's literally walking through some random person's door, them standing there and smiling at you like an idiot, and then out of the blue you just asking them for their life story, and them complying to you. Seriously, in what plane of existence is such a thing "realistic?" or "immersive" If I walked into somebodies house without invitation, and asked them for the latest "rumors" I'd probably get shot.

True I agree with this and the rest of what you posted, and quite frankly it was put better than I could.

However it was not just stat dumps, each of those generic npc's would have specific infomation related to which gang, or area they belonged in.
A prosttute would know little about journals or buisness, but could be bribed to talk about shady goings on.
A thug could be distracted, tormented or provoked to a fight.
A scavanger would know more about the areas they looted, an old lady may remember seeing you in the past.
In Oblivion ( and I love that game btw ), the named generic ones apart from a few specific quests. ( thieves guild, or dark brotherhood mostly. )
Would all just draw from the same topic tree, only the introduction and one other piece was unique.

This is an improvement.

Good point, and from what I've seen of the TESC you could do the same in Oblivion-engine games too.

I hope they do in fact.


However I'm still not that worried about "only a few" NPCs having full dialogue trees.

Yes, it should be possible, in fact some modded quests already have expanded like this a little, but I only run a few mods.

Yes it's not the size of content or how many topics that matters.
It's what the npc's say, how they say it, and which type of npc says it that is the main concern.

Exactly. Not to mention the fact that naming these people and giving them dialogue is a massive waste of developer resources.

In Oblivion as is, you walk through a city's gate, there'll be 15 guards, and 3 civilians. the civilians will make some offshoot remark about mudcrabs, then they'll all resume just standing around. Then one walks home for some reason. I walk up to one who I've never met, and he proceeds to tell me his life story (in a two sentence speel) for some reason, okay buddy; Im just going to go to the weapon shoppe now. :whistling:

I'd hope, for my ideal Skyrim, you'd walk through the city gates. You hear the ambient pvssyr of civilians, the pattering of footsteps, and you'd see a moving crowd of 20-30 people going about their daily tasks; stopping by the fountain, going into stores, and stopping at kiosks. Some people would be sitting at market kiosks hammering away at armor or weapons, some would be criers for their food service. You walk about among the crowds. But WAIT, I feel like talking to somebody. Hey, there's a random civilian going about his business; I've never met him, I don't know his name, nor do I care to know his name, so it doesn't display his name. When I try to speak to him, he says "Who are you? I'm sort of busy in case you can tell.." because thats what such a person would do. and then continues about his business. So I walk into the local bar, nameless people are all drinking, some are off in the corner singing and swinging their pints around the piano. I sit down, the waitress/wench comes up and asks if I want a drink, I say yes, and ask about the days news, she has some unique dialogue so I ask out of interest, the reply in nonchalant and not stilted; she is named because she is a unique character and can offer more dialogue in the future. I leave the bar and go to the weapons smith/general store and continue to go about my business in the populated and noisy streets.

Now honestly which one sounds more appealing? I don't feel that it's biased, because I described oblivion's NPC interaction exactly as they are experienced. For my "ideal" Skyrim description, I described something that is easily possible with todays tech and feasible for the developers to do. So which one sounds better?

in oblivion most people only had a rumor to say, one i had heard a million times before, im sure it will be similair.