Starting New thread to discuss Realistic populations in Skyrim

Link to Old thread: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1210902-realistic-population/

Original post from Old thread

"When I look back at oblivion, one of the most glaring inconsistencies was the size of cities and their populations. I know that one of the focal points for bethesda is creating realistic, polished NPC's but it is underwhelming when you look at the majestic imperial city with its population of what, 100? I praise bethesda for the quality in their AI, but perhaps they should spend some time increasing city size and population, even if it is at the expense of a few dungeons and mountains. However, if this expansion comes with Fallout 3 style generic npcs (i.e. Megaton settler), forget it. Any thoughts? "

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

I believe that More NPCs per village/town/city should be in the game. A realistic number determined by how many houses are there and how average population (determined by Bethesda of course)

But a city the size of The Imperial City should have 300-400 NPCs inside of it, as in it's current form felt like a ghost town. I am not saying increase the amount of houses, but how many people live in each house, as most houses in Oblivion have 1 resident.

So, a quick little idea

Small Village - 10 houses - NPCs in village should be about 30

Average town - 30 houses - NPC count should be around 100

Fairly large city (IC size) - 100 houses - NPC count around 350


As villages/Towns/Cities grow in real life we usually have beggers and slums, thus increasing the average population from 3/house to 3.5/house.

And thats how i believe it would make for a far more realistic world.

350 isn't beyond realistic expectations (for non-generic NPC's that is)

and anyone who has used the less generic NPCs mod knows that generic NPCs are just a blank tapestry

The problem and base question in the first place has been, can the new engine handle more NPCs showing on the screen?

There's a reason Obsidian's Fallout New Vegas was empty too even though it was supposed to be packed to the brim.

Hopefully Bethesda has remedied the case.

A decent NPC population would be a huuuge step. Morrowind had slightly more NPCs, and as a frontier province, it was believable to see fewer people. Oblivion's # of NPCs was lacking.

I wouldn't use the term "realistic" so much as "acceptable." Think about Assassins Creed. Yes, obviously you couldn't even talk to most people, but they had WAY better scripted behavior than Oblivion's NPCs. Cut the number by half, add half again as much content, and boom, you've got a happy medium. I realize that's a simplification, but the solution can't be that far off the mark.

I would like more populated towns too, but if they're going to be as generic as Megaton settlers and Rivet City guards, who have no dialogue, no name, no house, no purpose to live, then let the population stay as it is.

I think the setting of Skyrim is better suited for low populated towns than the metropolitan province of Cyrdoiil, so the size of the population won't be immersion breaking.

And I still think putting more people in one house is the best way to do it. In the McNord estate for example, if Conan McNord is a quest-giver with unique dialogue, we can put in Mrs. McNord, Jr. McNord, Grandma Mcnord etc (with names of course) in the house as well so we will have our generic, purposeless NPCs, but they will have names, a house and a family. In Oblivion Conan would live in his house alone, in Skyrim they could do it this way.

Assassin's Creeds NPCs are not the standard to look at, Rockstar North and San Diego's are. But in a general RPG sense possibly Witcher 2.

AC has already been knocked for their NPCs simple behavior. Possibly more simple than Oblivions.

Also Oblivion is from 2006 so point is moot.

Refer to my previous post about Engine relating to NPC issues.

At times in AC you could have like 300 "Zombie" NPC's as i call em on screen at once. that would be excessive in a game like Skyrim as it's not only the AI, but NPC's graphically look a hell of a lot better.

Lets assume for a moment that the 5 main cities in Skyrim will be sectioned off like the Imperial City, which was seperated into like 8 sections. of those 8 sections there was about 10 people in each section.

Lets up that number to 40, Far off 350, it should be doable. Hell, even in those sections of 40 people, a few of those would be "Inside dwellers who never the building" AKA Shop-keeps, Inn-keepers.

so really, that could drop down to as low as 30 on screen. but thats still a huge improvement over the Imperial City where you could walk through 1 section and only see the 2 guards standing by the gates.

I think people are assuming that if generic NPCs are introduced it means less meaningful NPCs.

If they would have simply added about 20 or so generic NPCs performing tasks around the Imperial city that would have felt much more alive even if you couldn't actually talk to them or they gave some generic "I really don't have time to talk right now" response. Generic doesn't have to mean they are just walking about aimlessly. People could be unloading ships in the harbor, browsing market stalls, repairing a roof, or just running through the street toward some unknown destination.

To me its MUCH more realistic to have a lot more people that don't have time to be bothered with you, than only having 20 or so people on a street. No city the size of the Imperial city could function without a whole lot more workers performing mundane tasks about town.

I agree with this... A few people places here and there could really liven things up. And in Skyrim, I really hope that they tried to go for such a feel, in atleast a few of the towns... :shrug:.

Yeah, Hell, even Shop-keepers. What i wanted to know is, did they sleep? They were standing there waiting for someone to walk into the shop to sell armor to, who was making all the armor? did they stay up all night making it never sleep?

its not like oblivions NPCs were deep to begin with. you only had a limited number of topics and usually they only had one specific topic such as grey fox for beggars. just have a bunch of npcs that tell you to piss off and give them randomly generated names. its a bit unrealistic that everyone is going to cheerfully take time out of their day to talk to some stranger that approaches them.

Well, if Skyrim has the a similar number of NPCs, the point is very much relevant. They can get more NPCs into towns and on screen, it all depends on how they choose to allocate resources, and what clever tricks they use. Frankly, I don't know why everyone hates loading screens so much. They only bother me when I play backwards compatible Morrowind on my 360 and last 3 mins. Cities are already separate cells, there's no reason for them not to have more NPCs.

And even if you couldn't talk to them, Give them simple scripts like

6am wake up
7am go to work
5pm finish work, go home
6pm eat
8 pm go to bed.

I'll take people with 30 people with names and things to say over 300 nameless people who you can't even talk too.

Randomised names my friend :wink_smile:

Believe me, Skyrim's towns would seem more lived in, or alive, even if the population is not more than Oblivion's, (although Todd said it is more populated, in one of his earlier interviews), the different activities that people attend around their towns, would make it seem more alive and naturally populated.

If you see people going around and actually doing things like chopping wood and cleaning the bar counter, and so on, you would not feel that there is something missing.

The fact it's more realistic that you shouldn't be able to talk to every single person in the game (even if they say "I'm too busy to talk at the moment")

and It's more realistic that more people means a better feeling that when you walk into a town/village/city that you can see an actual population going about there lives whether its working (these guys should say what i just said above) going to the market, taking a stroll or anything.

I would take THAT over 30 NPCs in a large city where it feels like a ghost town.

This is exactly what I'm thinking, however, there seems to be a crowd on these boards who thinks that will be 'immersion breaking'. More people = better, even if they're just dummies.

Not dummies, they still spurt the "rumours", like, when you click on them they say "I hear Dragons have been sighted near..." Without actually opening a dialogue window.

Exactly.
I really dont need clutter NPC's.

So you liked the "Ghost Town" effect that was found in Oblivion?

Not if they are done like Daggerfalls NPCs (with more resonable numbers of course)

As I have stated numerous times on your previous thread, I prefer the Morrowind and Oblivion approach.
I prefer scaling to a degree where things that absolutely do not matter to the PC simply are not in the game.

I dont really care what hyperbole you slap on it, I dislike NPC's that are nothing more than moving scenery, a la mass effect or dragon age. Aside from the reasons I have stated before on why I prefer fleshed out NPC's, filler NPC's (like NPC's visibly essential) are spoilers, or spoiler inducing.
'This guy has a name. He must have a quest.'
No please.

That would be combated with Daggerfall random names

i never thought Oblivion was a ghost town, but i did like being able to interact with everyone. I hate in games when random people are there but you can't even talk to them. They add nothing to the game in my opinion.