Not by todays standards, perhaps.

It is possible to create a PC generator that can actually come up with some interestingstuff, all randomly generated PC's with randomly generated conversation, stats, equip, etc. Me and my brother (mostly my brother) once reated a small computer program to do just that, for no other reason than to see how it would work (using C# language)

Probably the reason t worked acceptably and didnt crete a bunch of zombies is beacause of the conversation program we made in addition to it, that would make the npc talk to you based on what you said, using certain key words that the cpu could recognize.

So it is possible to create a realistic mass of random people, but would the results be worth it? and could cmputers reasonably handle such a massive information load?

My knowlege of programming, based on what we created, does say it could work, but how well?

Two words.

Assassin's Creed.

Aren't NPC:s in AC rather lifeless and generic? Can they even talk?
edit: I mean, aside from responses to the PC:s behaviour, which from what I've heard, are quite good.

I agree.There should have been lots of random traders,miners,travelers,and such(from all over the world)).Not even including the local pop.

I'm pretty sure that you don't go around having cordial, in-depth conversations with Manhattan longshoremen and commuting businessmen you run into on the street. But it's probably because you lack the devastating personal magnetism of the PC.

But if they don't talk.. what good are they? Immersion?
I mean, they are there to provide the PC with information, if he needs to. I wouldn't expect to have indepth, thought provoking, life changing conversations with them, but they could still be useful, other than being eye candy.

I'd say about 7,000 + 8,000,000 non-citizen bandits =)

Exactly, Oblivion only needs about 10 NPCs, all the rest are superfluous. It's not gameplay my friend, it's atmosphere.

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/405/120948137029kf1.jpg (Its more like five miles high as opposed to the one mile high structure I described earlier) The IC should be able to support 15 million people by augmenting what would be a sewage nightmare with magic. I am picturing toilet bowels that have small magic portals in them that lead to a couple miles above Morrowind or something. This would then eliminate the need for plumbing so all of those catacombs and ancient underground ruins would actually fit. The city would probably be more than just two tiers, I think 9 would be good (for the nine divines!). Minas Tireth should have nothing on Imperial City.

(I svck at posting links so tell me if that link worked.)

Ooh, pretty... I want that in the game.

Way cooler than what we got in-game. It has an awe-inspiring presence that's just... wow.

A lot

Evey RPG and its mother has nameless NPCs that spout "Hello!" and "Half you heard? Tel'viagra was overrun by demons!" But none of Oblivion's hands-at-the-sides closeup interrogations.

For some reason, this gives me the image of the PC as some sort of cruel interrogator for a totalitarian regime. The civilian population of the Imperial City is kept in line by a strict Imperial Guard presence, and they are specially trained so as to give the illusion of a perfect, Disneyland-esque utopia. The player is the Grand Inquisitor, whose job it is to find out information about every citizen in Cyrodiil under the guise of an explorer looking for work. The civilian population, however, knows and is prepared by the government for the inquisition -- they have such pale and deformed faces because they spend all of their off-screen time in their houses watching massive televisions of Uriel Septim's head screaming "I LOVE YOU" at them until they are fully brainwashed by the government, and one of the many aspects of their training is to stare blankly and talk about themselves with their hands at their sides when an Inquisitor approaches.

Wow, I've had one too many Red Bulls.

You mean, it took red bull to finally open your eyes to the truth. But it is a truth we never speak. Delete your post.

I am waiting for a automatic quest making system to be developed. Sorta how GTA has NPC specific physics reaction when you run them over, its just going to be another step towards better NPC's. Its not exactly artificial intelligence I am looking for, just a sort of simple quest maker that NPC's use.

I do think that is a good point about useless NPC's that don't really say anything.

For one thing, what would you do if someone came up to you that you had never seen before carrying a huge warhammer and wearing a scary helmet, and asked you to tell him your favorite gossip of the day. Then he asked some questions about town, ok that's normal maybe you'd give him some directions and such. Then things get wierd. This huge scary guy (who smells like he hasn't bathed... ever) asks a whole bunch of strange questions about your familly and the guy down the street and so on. Would you even answer those questions if he asked you? Probably not.

Now imagine Oblivion really DID have 1,000,000+ NPC's, would you even waste your time talking to some random guy on the street for your information or would you actually use contacts for your info, or people you know are actually going to be useful. After all, how many people in a big city are actually going to know that the guy 10 houses down goes to Joe's house every thursday night at 8:00? Unless that guy is real freak, he's not going to know that at all.

So you see, with a realistic number of NPC's, the amount of "reality" per NPC is lowered drastically. You can easily have thousands of randomly generated people that just go around and do random stuff (this could very easilly include shopping, traveling, hunting, stealing, or whatever your little heart desires)

So now I am officially converted to larger # of NPC's. But you will never convince me to convert to larger land size. See Earlier post about how long it would take to do anything!



To add to this, the reason there are so few people is because the stress of such a lifestyle causes a tremendous number of heart attacks. these people are terribly unhealthy and often die young. You see no children because, since this policy was enforced the people have been nothing but mindless drones, and so procreation has completely seased(sp?) -we can see this policy is far reaching, even te ashlanders of Vvardenfel are efected!

Perhaps with the death of the Septim Line, and the likely chaos that will fallow, this evil policy will be swiftly abandoned out of inability to enforce it.

I hate those. If they just keep repeating the same stupid lines over and over, they might as well be silent.
However - Getting info is important. I think Age of Decandence might be http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=391.msg11215#msg11215, though. Still, would be kinda hard to implement such a "story telling" kind of conversation system together with the way TES traditionallly does it.

So back on subject. Are there any hard numbers suggested in books from TES series? I hear talk of armies under King Talos...but in the game those "armies" were probably 35 dudes.

Remember, a census of the games proper (with the possible exception of Daggerfall, although that scale is still too small if we're talking an entire continent here) is not a good estimate of how many people inhabit Tamriel; as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, technological and gameplay (NPC interaction) restraints do not allow an especially faithful depiction. The same goes for city and town sizes.

Although you probably already knew that and were just making a snippy remark. Whatever.

EDIT: Is this thread done yet?

The thread will be done when enough people http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/405/120948137029kf1.jpg and make appropriate comments about its awesome, yet nightmarishly Freudian design.

oo: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! :nuke:

Wow.... that is... scary


What is the source of that pic, by the way?

To make things worse, the same can be said about the Niben Vally.

I'd have prefered oblivion if it had JUST had the Imperial city in it and focused on doing the Imperial city really really well.