When dragons attack. : V

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:29 am

I was wondering what people thought of this. I got to thinking that Dragon attacks must not be all that dangerous, except to the player, because if dragons are attacking towns, and killing people, then it wouldn't be long before most NPCs in the world are dead. Leaving just the player wandering around in a deserted country, except for guards that respawn. So the only solutions are that NPCs hide and pretty much always survive, or npcs randomly spawn in to replace people, which is very unlikely.

What do you think?

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:14 pm

This is an interesting point. If the dragons are unscripted and do actually pop up and attack the towns like Todd Howard said, then I'm curious to see how the townsfolk handle dealing with the dragons.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:28 pm

I hope that they hide and dragons take what they want and leave. I think if we look back in dragon literature at one movie "How to train your dragon", we see that dragons will often attack not in malice, but as a form of hunting. They come, scare off some townsfolk, and take their sheep.

I'd like to see people in cities rebuilding the damage that was done. that would give the world an incredibly dynamic feel

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 11:24 pm

i believe(or hope) that when dragon attacks happen, most of the npcs would get away safely while a few lay dead in the street after the attack (maybe have someone carrying them away to be buried too??? but likely wont happen)

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:35 am

People learn to defend themselves?

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:16 am

Maybe the small dragons are waiting for something to happen just like Mehrunes Dagon didn't just appear at the start of Oblivion.

But good point, the dragons are acting like normal monsters and not human exterminators.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:21 pm

I really don't want NPCs randomly spawning. Make my NPCs real please!

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:02 am

Derp, They would only attack a town just as a player enters it, like the devs would let 5 dragon attacks happen on a city while your not around to see them.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:54 pm

Derp, They would only attack a town just as a player enters it, like the devs would let 5 dragon attacks happen on a city while your not around to see them.

I hope your right, and Beth would make sure that this doesn't happen.
To the rest of you worrying about things like this... jeez, trust Beth man, they know what they are doing!

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 5:11 am

I was wondering what people thought of this. I got to thinking that Dragon attacks must not be all that dangerous, except to the player, because if dragons are attacking towns, and killing people, then it wouldn't be long before most NPCs in the world are dead. Leaving just the player wandering around in a deserted country, except for guards that respawn. So the only solutions are that NPCs hide and pretty much always survive, or npcs randomly spawn in to replace people, which is very unlikely.

What do you think?

If a quest giver dies, another person like a family member will take their place. That's been confirmed. Someone stated that most of the NPCs in Skyrim will not be able to even converse with you; just speak to eachother about rumors and greet people. I would guess that these types of NPCs are worthless in the overall scheme of things and could just be replaced by preset characters or randomly generated ones, once killed.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:07 am

I was wondering what people thought of this. I got to thinking that Dragon attacks must not be all that dangerous, except to the player, because if dragons are attacking towns, and killing people, then it wouldn't be long before most NPCs in the world are dead. Leaving just the player wandering around in a deserted country, except for guards that respawn. So the only solutions are that NPCs hide and pretty much always survive, or npcs randomly spawn in to replace people, which is very unlikely.

What do you think?

Both. Guards will respawn and will the ones to get killed most frequently in a dragon attack. Named NPC's won't respawn and they'll just hide in the nearest interior. If it somehow happens that a named NPC does get killed, then Radiant Story will kick in to fill it's shoes.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 11:34 pm

Dragons are people too as well. I doubt they will rampage willy nilly. I'm even hoping we encounter some sympathetic or neutral dragons, but with the way Todd was talking in the podcast I don't have my hopes up too high for that anymore.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:08 pm

I guess that if this happens, most npcs will hide in their house, in a inn or in the guard house. Only guards would be left outside and that's not much of a problem since they will propably respawn like in OB. I hope i'm right because i don't want to see ghost towns because of a dragon attack.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:41 am

I hope that named NPCs do get killed every now and then, would add a sense of loss to the world. They would just get replaced by radiant story anyway, hopefully.

Imagine you talk to an NPC, maybe do a quest for them or something or get attached to them somehow (I get attached to NPCs sometimes), then there's a dragon attack at some point and you find out they are dead or see them lying dead in the street after the attack... :sad:

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 4:07 am

I hope its not as cheesy as...

You are entering a town and suddenly a dragon shows up and attacks, rather then fighting it you use the "trick"...duck inside any building for a few seconds and the attack ends because you are no longer there to make the dragon want to persue the attack, and then step back outside a few seconds later, rinse and repeat every time you see a dragon and don't want to fight it.

I hope somehow the dragon still either knows you are there and waits for you to come out again, or it just continues to attack anyone it sees in the town, because the "trick" would svck.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:20 am

all interesting points so far. Hopefully, there'll also be some structures, that if you go inside the dragon can smash through it and come after you inside, kind of like Mehrunes Dagon at the end of Oblivion.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 6:15 am

I think that buildings are going to be more open this time around, so it seems to me this won't be possible. Think buildings a'la GTA IV, where walking in and out of buildings was seamless.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 1:44 am

I hope that they hide and dragons take what they want and leave. I think if we look back in dragon literature at one movie "How to train your dragon", we see that dragons will often attack not in malice, but as a form of hunting. They come, scare off some townsfolk, and take their sheep.

I'd like to see people in cities rebuilding the damage that was done. that would give the world an incredibly dynamic feel

:facepalm: Well if we equate everything that Dreamworks does as fantasy fact than we have a lot to change about Skyrim. Talking creatures, bears that know karate, Unbelievably racist portrayal of African animals like hippos and zebras... well maybe not that last one. My sarcasm aside you are correct. Dragons are intelligent creatures so they are likely to have actual motives for doing things. In fact I would say many of them would probably shy away from towns because they are too much of a bother when they can chase free roaming deer.

» Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:21 pm

So I was just thinking... When a dragon attacks we can just go underwater and avoid it?

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 6:00 am

When a dragon attacks a town, which apparently won't be too rare, and a player fails to defend the town (possibly due to the fact that they weren't there or they hid instead of fought) then the dragon's attack will damage the town's economy, raising prices in and around the town. Similarly, when a dragon attacks they will cause damage to the buildings, forcing repairs

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:35 am

I hope its not as cheesy as...

You are entering a town and suddenly a dragon shows up and attacks, rather then fighting it you use the "trick"...duck inside any building for a few seconds and the attack ends because you are no longer there to make the dragon want to persue the attack, and then step back outside a few seconds later, rinse and repeat every time you see a dragon and don't want to fight it.

I hope somehow the dragon still either knows you are there and waits for you to come out again, or it just continues to attack anyone it sees in the town, because the "trick" would svck.

Todd said they could land in the streets and walk around. I hope dragons perch themselves on an adjacent building and wait for you to come back outside every once in awhile. And why shouldn't they? If I was a dragon, I'd be wanting to kill you more than anyone else. Afterall, you are the Dovahkiin.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:20 am

Todd said they could land in the streets and walk around. I hope dragons perch themselves on an adjacent building and wait for you to come back outside every once in awhile. And why shouldn't they? If I was a dragon, I'd be wanting to kill you more than anyone else. Afterall, you are the Dovahkiin.

True, but I have a hard time believing we'll partake in a dragon fight akin to the one we see in the trailer.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:28 am

True, but I have a hard time believing we'll partake in a dragon fight akin to the one we see in the trailer.

I heard they can walk on the ground, land on large objects, swoop down on you, and crash. Yeah, I doubt it'll be as fluid as it was in the trailer but I think the dragons will do lots of things that may suprise. If the developers spent two years working on one enemy, I assume it's capable of giving us endless amounts of dynamic battles.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:14 am

There will probably be NPC respawns because

1: They're adding more NPCs in towns then they did in OB with one liner dailogue. This is good however since we'll have a lot more NPCs, I mean in OB, they just had "rumors." Ohhhh big deal. Not to mention that there was a lot LESS of them.

2: Because of reason 1, those NPCs would be filler NPCs so it would make sense for them to respawn. There's absolutely no reason to keep a filler NPC dead forever.

» Wed Apr 13, 2011 6:10 am

after my first few playthroughs i wont care about the main quest any longer. so if a dragon attacks a town....[censored] em.