» Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:08 pm
i see you there, Mr. Meister~
the way i'm thinking it'll be handled is like - each settlement has core buildings that won't be destroyed for the sake of player convenience, but there will also be a handful of buildings (houses, taverns, whatever) that can be destroyed, and if the player goes back to them later on they'll see the town being rebuilt, and after they finish the main quest and go back it might be fully repaired but visually different.
alternatively this could be a relatively rare event and only happen to settlements that don't really do anything, so the player will walk through the village at some point and be like "okay" and then find themselves coming back that way in the future and suddenly finding absolutely nothing remains except charred skeletons and burnt-out houses. it would be a good motivation to actually go through and finish the main quest if they handled it like this.