imagine: You walk out of a tavern from a good nights sleep when in the distance u hear faint screaming.... then, out of nowhere a dragons shadow paints the cities caslte with darkness. it opens its motuh, pouring fire and napalm into the satle cpurt yard. best part is....ITS UR JOB TO GET RID OF IT!

feel free to comment or make ur own story

Isn't this already a confirmed feature? Except with better keyboard-handling?

Yup, I seem to recall mention of dragons attacking towns back in the GameInformer articles.

Well, it appears that its pretty much possible considering what Todd described.

What concerns me is if dragons can randomly attack like that, how well will the game world handle NPCs dying to dragons? Sure, if that one guy dies he gets replaced by his sister, but what happens if SHE dies? What happens if whoever replaces her dies? Do they even go that far? I doubt they do.

I understand they're trying to make the world a bit less fragile, but I just wonder how far they can go with that.

you defeat it with finesse & become th TES equivalent of Duke Nukem :toughninja: :hubbahubba:

that is actually a concerning question, how will hey handle deaths?

I think its probably select NPCs, important ones (shopkeepers and quest givers) who are given another person that will replace them. But if THAT person dies, then the player is just out of luck. It would be really silly if I ran through an entire town, killed everyone, and then they all got replaced.

That's exactly why I suppose they'll be these kind of randomized encounters we know from FO rather than really random attacks.
So persons who die in attacks would be kind of disposable, although I could see one being rewarded in a way if you do save such a person.

I guess you'd have a bunch of wrathful relatives coming after you. I could see shops close indeed if you really manage to take out whole families.

haha ikr

I'm guessing they'll make the important ones essential, shopkeepers will be inside their stores at all times or respawn after some time. All others will be expendable and will probably just respawn. Todd did say that the radiant story was essentially controlled random generation, so it doesn't matter if quest givers die expect for the MQ (and those will be essential).

with radient story, one quest giver dies another one gives you the quest

I'm actually a bit skeptical about family members taking over for one another as well. In Todd's telltale example of killing the Riverwood shopkeeper and later receiving the quest from his sister, do we know how much of that situation is actually hand-written? Will we be able to see his sister going about her daily activities even when he's still alive, and then her schedule will seamlessly change to take over the duties of running the shop? Or is she just some randomly generated NPC who will appear out of nowhere, with the exact same dialog as her brother (albeit re-recorded)? :spotted owl:

I'm hoping that NPCs don't expect the PC to do everything. City guards, with the help of hired Fighters Guild and "Mages" Guild associates should be able to fend off or kill a Dragon on their own.

About the shopkeeper dilemma. I believe that we are limiting our views with it. In real life what happens when a clerk gets fired? Does the boss limit himself to picking only the clerks siblings? Of course not. So if a family that holds a shop dies then maybe someone else OTHER than a family member takes over the shop. If you think about it back then many people would kill in order to get people off of shop owning and buy the shop themselves. And I bet the person wouldn't have some relation to the now dead man. In a sense the family system works very well, but if a whole family dies then guess what? Someone else will see opportunity and take over the empty shop. That or it's lost forever.

The generic civilians will respawn when dragons attack villages.

I'd find it also a bit daft if there'd be no reference to the deceased relative or previous owner. Imagine you kill someone and the next day the shop opens again with the fellow's wife giving you the broadest smile without one mention of a funeral or anyone else grieving. I hope you see what I mean.

true man

From what I've heard radiant story handles new immigrants into the province of Skyrim from other lands like merchants, mercenaries, bandits, refugees, etc. So technically theirs unlimited Npcs so if a quest giver dies and ultimately his family dies maybe the"ll just make it so that his uncle or something from Cyrodill comes to take up shop.

Yep, and that was mentioned along with the whole "relatives will replace them" thing- that you might have to work on the replacement's disposition, since they'll remember why they're working the shop instead of the person you killed. Which makes me wonder how far they can push the feature, since I'd think a quest (retrieve family artifact, whatever) would have to be pretty important for them to even consider hiring you after you kill one of their relatives. Sure it could work for some things- but they casual "Hey, could you run this across the street to so-and-so's shop for me?" stuff...not seeing it.

I'd like to believe you, but since when do we know there'll be these immigration flows to Skyrim? Could be I missed it, but it just sounds so terribly odd to me.

I've been skeptical about that ever since I've heard it. Only the possibility that a relative might give that quest to you just seems to make any credibility of the game world shatter into a gazillion bits.

"Before his untimely death at the hands of a mysterious, shirtless Nord wearing a stupid horned helmet, my brother needed somebody to buy him a new pair of pants."

He never did get those pants. :stare:

"Could you be a dear and get me them so that his spirit won't come back to haunt us for all of eternity? It'd be much appreciated."

Todd Howard was talking about it in some interviews and i think its in the podcast. But if you think about it, It would be the perfect way to handle it is it not? He wasn't quite clear on the other part about the disposition but atleast thats ok and also there using radiant story to generate random assassin quests to kill random people. now think IF there was a set amount of npcs in the game how would it let you go on unlimited assassin contracts which is what he said you can do.

Why does the name http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Hainab_Lasamsi suddenly come to mind?

i think the question on how dragon attacks on towns will be handled was asked a few times in the fan interview topics... i asked it, as well.

hopefully its picked and todd clears it up for us.

i really dont think it'd be a good idea to buy an expensive house in a city, and step out just to have a dragon swoop by, detroying shopkeepers walking to work in the morning, wiping out everything that controls the town economy, and killing about 90% of the population.

i imagine that town not looking so pleasant to live in, after that. :confused:

:rofl: