If your like me then on at least one playthrough I like to keep every NPC alive to the best of my abilities, outside of DB quests of course, I like to find the peaceful solution. But Dragons attacking towns has me concerned, will they be attacking the citizens/quest givers ? I don't like the thought of that. I hope whilst in a town your warned of the dragon approaching somehow, maybe someone rings the town bell and all NPC's run to the nearest available shelter.

I know radiant AI for the most part should search for another family member to give me the quest or whatever , but the thought of loading up autosave from entering the town (assuming the towns are in separate cells) to try an save that one guy who managed to get himself killed bothers me.

I'm leaning towards the everybody runs inside thing though because with children appearing in the game you cant have them being 'knocked unconscious' every 5 seconds a dragon attacks and you cant exactly have them standing invincible (ala fallout 3 and NV) staring the dragon in the eye.

Thoughts ?

It probably won't be possible. I'd be disappointed otherwise as dragon attacks wouldn't be dramatic anymore if people don't die.
Rather change your goal to not being a cause for someone's death.

My hopes are: the cities are open; the dragons attack with no artificial warning for the player (radar, message, etc); not everyone will take cover, some will try to fight and will die (I hope the dead are replaced by other random guards/npcs so the cities don't seem deserted after); none of the essential quest npcs will die, they'll run inside and we won't know they are invincible because we don't see their health bar; the same with kids; I can't wait to see dragons attacking cities, it must be so cool with all the panic, screaming, mothers dragging children, soldiers drawing weapons, archers shooting arrows, maybe bells ringing, should be epic!

What they probably mean is part of the main quest dragons attack cities. With it all scripted for that quest, etc.

I just hope the dragon comes straight for me.

Citizens run indoors, screaming an such of course.

Then its just me and the guards.

I know how you feel, but you can't save everybody. All you can do is strive to do better.

Indeed, but I'm sort of compulsive like that, I mean NO named NPC could die at the battle of Bruma or the Imperial city for me.

I'm a little concerned about this, yes. I don't mind being able to kill quest givers myself, because I decided to kill that person, if I broke a quest later on for it, that's my own fault, but I don't want important quest people dying for things entirely outside of my control and which I had no way to prevent (The player can't always be around when dragon's attack, after all, unless dragons only attack when the player is in the area, which would create a feeling that the world revolves around the player, which you usually seek to avoid as much as possible when trying to built a believable world.) But I'd assume Bethesda has a way to counter this. My guess is that either important quest givers are still essential like in Oblivion (Or get marked as invulnerable when dragon's attack but can still be killed by the player.) or such NPCs are programmed to hide in the safety of buildings whenever dragons attack. Guards and generic, expendable NPCs could, and I think, should still be killable, because the feeling that dragons are a real threat is somewhat diminished when they just fly over cities and be menacing but leave the entire population untouched. Either way, I can't see the company that brought us Oblivion's essential NPCs allowing even characters vital to major questlines to die freely as a result of events outside of the player's control, like dragon attacks.

If a Dragon attacked a NPC(nothing would make me happier) would the dragon just kill him, or would he kill the NPC and eat him? I think it would be cool to see a dragon eat a random guy.

I say you seek the impossible. You are a tiny, fragile, weak mortal. And attempting to keep everyone alive is just a task that is out of your hands.

:D The only thing that matters is that you deal out just revenge for every trampled flower and gouged child. Extract fury on your crusade of retribution and smite the dragons with it!

Or you can turn yourself into superman without the kryptonite weakness by using console commands. Then you can keep all alive.

I think it's been confirmed that Dragon attacks will be random. In other words, dragon attacks are not quests but events that can happen anytime.

As for names NPC's dying... I think Radiant Story won't allow them to die if they have quests or have topics they can still discuss with the PC. It ain't Betehsda style to allow that to happen.
However, most NPC's will be nameless (or generated by Radiant Story) and exist for immersion's sake so they are the ones who will die most of the time.

Selbeth_The_Winged_One Perhaps addresses my concerns more accurately than my OP.

that would require scripting. No.

I dunno, is Fleeing a script ? Could running indoors be tagged on there somehow ? I doubt even if Dragons kill any NPC like I don't want, I doubt there gonna go about there daily business regardless, wouldn't scripting be involved Anyhow ??

@ryan22
yeah but once there indoors they will act like nothing is happening, waltz outside, bam! scream n run back in 'n' repeat.

thats just one of the many outcomes of what could happen, its not just scripting but AI and the scripts running together.

Yeah but you know what I mean, They are gonna implement something for dragon attacks, I don't wanna see NPCs cowering in the streets during a dragon attack. Maybe all NPC's eventually make there way to shelter and then no NPC's are let out until the dragons gone and your not allowed in like the final quest in the main quest in Oblivion ?

SUDDEN UNDERSTANDING! ok ok soz, this is mai brain. on durgz.
i had it like, it was hovering around the town spewing fireballs and stuff exploding, and it would stop for a second then the dragon would swoop in destroying a house.

When has *this* been confirmed?



Alas, it is Bethesda style. Look at Fallout 3.

2 things:

1. It was confirmed by Pete Hines and Todd Howard via interview and twitter posts many times that dragon attacks are random and CAN happen at any time TO THE PLAYER specifically. This says nothing whatsoever about how dragons relate to towns/cities in any way.

2. Strange question, but I find it prudent....Why does everyone posting about children assume they won't die??? I can see that finally there will be some realism to TES in Skyrim by having children in the world, and a huge part of that will be involving them in quests both good and bad for their general well being. I find that with that inclusion alone, our motivations for quests involving children should be that much stronger and the story that much more powerful. I mean, what motivates you more? For instance, killing the random dragons that attack ONLY YOU out in the wilderness? Or killing one specific scarred black dragon that has been rauaging Whiterun for months and has killed/eaten/burned to a crisp many men, women, and young defenseless children???

Aside from that however, please note that I am in favor of dragon attacks being major quests and/or possibly random events that can be stopped from being repeated by killing a dragon that has been owning a specific town. However, how this will play out in-game has yet to be confirmed/denied.

I fNPC quest giver or not doesn t die with dragons attack this game will be more pathetic than Barbies goes shopping, or betty bobs goes buy a new biquini game.

Are there any other minute features of the game that would make it worse than games you made up for 8 year old girls and 14 year old boys respectively?

Im going off fallout 3 and NV, but I'm also sure the children won't be killable, imagine the uproar ?

Of course....
Minigames and grab-my-hand-and-show-me-the-way compass mark. They all fit toghether as NPC not dying when dragon or armies attack.

Well kids won t be killable...sad, they will stay all parentless in a civil war dragon attacked cold and unforgivable country. Go wonder how they will survive, with wolves ogres, goblins, bandits and the like stalking the land.
Some destinies are far worse than a quick death, but i guess this is a requirement to stay T marked. Without this it would keep most of the console market and a bit of the PC market out of the sell range.

Link to that interview, please - I seem to have missed it? Thanks. This sounds too random and bug-friendly even for TES...

EDIT: Actually I see some good reasons why this should not be the case. Look at the size of a dragon. Fighting them would certainly work on a big field or glacier, but in the middle of a dense forest? In a ravine? In a city with narrow streets? This would be buggy, to say the least.



Apparently by combining the facts that (1) if some NPC in a TES game is killable at all, then it is killable by the player and (2) the family-friendliness police is always ready to launch a [censored]storm at every game dev allowing players to kill children. We even had this in Fallout 3, which was supposed to be way more grim and bloody than all of TES combined (although it was possible to kill the kids one was supposed to be escorting - and actually it happened without the player's intention through a bug).