Agree. Wherever I go, I see only few people. There are some cities that are made of 3 houses or such. Looks even worse.

I don't think city is the right term here. Most places are really just glorified villages, and the reason for that is probably a combination of technology and restraint.

In Skyrim, everybody has a house or inn where they sleep and live. There really aren't any nameless, filler NPCs in cities. Providing an actual city with hundreds of residents would be a monumental task. Not only that, but the city would take up a sizeable chunk of land mass, and you'd have to load new areas all the time. (Kind of like the Oblivion city to a much larger scale.)

I just consider Skyrim to be condensed adventuring. The land is smaller, time passes faster, technology hasn't changed in 200 years, and towns are only filled with relevant people.

This. I'm torn between my desire to see a bustling town complete with nameless people who I never need to interact with in any way possilble, and my desire to not have to cut throught chaff to find interesting quests.

Oblivion was too much and I think Skyrim is possibly too little. I would be fine with generic "townsfolk" people, but I also know that Bethesda don't work that way - everyone has a name.

it does feel a little empty

There could be more, but there's plenty. Look at Whiterun, there's like 20 people or more inside the city walls, and that's not counting the tons of farms outside the walls.

Remember, they're holds which encompass a larger are than just the towns. I like it as it is, rather than some GTA system with 10,000 useless people everywhere.

Plus, it's the friggen arctic. Not many people want to live there.

Then people cryed there wasn't enough in Oblivion and now there are too many...... :rofl: Most of the people on this forum will never be happy with what they get in a game.

Agreed, perhaps they should of spent more time on the cities both in size and content. Also increased sectioning might have helped with the detail on screen e.g plains district > door > cloud district. I can understand it is not meant to be as populated as other places and its only a representation, but still, it seems to be a constant issue many people dislike and one of the more striking declines from MW to Skyrim.

I think the most striking reflection of low population consideration is the grey quarter of Windhelm, they should have made that place feel like a refugee camp, squalor, thugs, over-population, people sleeping in the street/ packed into houses. Not only would this have helped us to understand the problems of Morrowind and its people but it would have better contrasted with Ulfric and his treatment of the Dunmer and his desire to preserve his cultural identity. In its current state a player merely asks himself, why the 3 or so Dunmer just dont move on.

Now, people need to understand the reality that we are never going to have assassins creed level filled streets, thats just not how Beth rolls or handles cities (a good thing). But a few more lollygaggers on the streets and better use of the spacing in the cities is certainly on the cards.

All that being said, the cities themselves are beautiful works of art. I love every single one of the major ones for its own unique style and feel

go away, valid points are brought up.

Today I went to Solitude to explore and familiarize myself with the city, but it's in the middle of the day, and it's literally devoid of people! Only a couple of guards walking around that's it!
The city is beautiful though, just wish it's a little more crowded..

Nobody talks about 100s of NPCs, I just wish Dawnstar, "the biggest port in Skyrim", had a bit more than the 5 people who aren't shopowners/government agents/tavern owners.

Is nobody here planning some mod? Surely such a glaring problem must have attracted modders?

All of the cities seem way to small and devoid of people, except for Riften, WindHelm, and Markarth. Those three just seem the largest and most populated, such as having 14 people at the Inn in Riften at night.

after you finish the forsworn quest there are almost no normal people (non-shopowners, non-jarl servants etc) left. Just a few miners and some tavern wenches.

I for one was quite dissapointed at the fact that a couple of those 'larger' cities like Falkreath and Dawnstar just happened to be a village + 1 building instead of having their own style.

OT: Yeah there should've been more people in the cities. And bandits should have names. Even if they would be randomly generated.

Besides that I think Skyrim is great.

Certainly needs more life in the cities, I imagined when I first entered Whiterun I'd see a bustling community, there are 2 redguard inside the gate, I won't do their quest just to keep them around as part of the population, even if they don't move from that position.
Hopefully we'll get mods to double the population.

The towns and cities have a dozen buildings in them. They are tiny.

depends on how you finish it :thumbsup:

my Markarth is as full as the day is was created

I really think the Assassin's Creed engine could make an awesome base for an heavily populated RPG world. It would be really awesome. Even if most npcs are cannon fodder. I dont need to talk to everyone in the world. Just the interesting people.

That being said, Dragon Age 2's Kirkwall was so horrible that Skyrim seems like a rave party in comparison.

Edit: Not mmo world, I mean RPG. I got [censored] on the brains.

40 dungeons would be way too few. I would like bigger cities too but I wouldn't want to take away from something else to make them bigger. That makes no sense.

I didn't vote. Id like larger cities with more people but not at the expense of things like dungeons and explorable places. Too bad we don't have large cities with at least a couple you can get completely lost in, plus tons of explorable places as well... better luck next time.

I want to know why winterhold is even considered a city. It's smaller than Riverwood.