Anyone think that Dragons might end up wiping out towns or at least killing off some of its people? I remember that in one of the articles it was mentioned that Dragons could attack towns, so I'm worried that this might lead to NPCs getting killed; although there's radiant story, dead towns aren't much fun.

Also, since dragons can fly around, what chance do we have if we encounter a Dragon at a low level? Or are Dragons leveled?

I would prefer rather than getting off easy and nothing being affected.

I don't think so. It would be dynamic, but to have an empty town with respawning guards would be weak.

Maybe there will be a scripted town set to be destroyed, or perhaps half of the big city.

I'd just thought about the part where towns' economies could get ruined. Perhaps Dragon Attacks could destroy a city's economy, by burning their crops or destroying their lumber mill for instance. These towns could then have set, repeatable quests which you can do to help them recover from the attack.

Also, if there are generic NPCs, perhaps they could die and respawn, but with a different look.

This was something along the lines of what i wasthinking.. because when they talk about the encounter with a dragon when you find out you're dragonborn it seems like the dragon will attack a town, and i was hoping for something other than a kvatch scenario where they never rebuild.. hopefully fixing the town but to a point where you can see the damage, and randomly creating NPCs would make fix this, although with random generation there a chance we could get some .. rather strange sort of people

True, it is possible that we get some messed up people. But this would be awesome to see.

I certainly hope that they dont destroy the town permanently, if a lot of NPC's get killed along imagine how many quests you might miss.

I would love to come to a town and find corpses strewn around with the odd burning building..much more immersive and believable. Perhaps they can respawn the dead with a family member to ensure no broken quests. Buildings could at least "burn" for a while. even if they aren`t destroyed.

Certainly wouldn`t want to see a town under attack and no casualties or fires, that would be plain unrealistic

I also rather disliked Kvatch which never rebuilt and remained eternally rainy, sort of became a gloomy point in my scenic travels from Skingrad to Anvil.

Indeed, random NPCs would end up giving strange-faced NPCs like in Oblivion, and there is the chance that one day we'll end up seeing the reincarnation of someone who just died in a Dragon attack a day ago. Still, it's better to have a Commoner-varine than having named NPCs dying.

But how do we stop dragons from killing non-generic NPCs without making them all essential?

EDIT: Indeed, I would not want to see a dragon attack without casualties, but if we use family members to replace the dead then what will happen if the Dragon AI (which is supposed to be independent and scriptless) somehow decides to attack that town again? Will the town citizens have an endless bloodline?

Dragons attacking towns dynamically is a nice feature, I don't see why it wouldn't work. There are a few ways they can structure this to work, so we know dragons will dynamically attack towns, it's not pre-determined to happen.

Method #1:
-All important NPC such as those that provide the player with quests or tasks cannot be killed by the Dragon attack, and somehow always manage to escape
-The buildings burn and get destroyed
-Other random NPC's die...and of course re-spawn later on (randomly)
-Shop owners e.t.c can also die, but family will re-spawn when the town is back in order

Method #2:
-ALL NPC that cannot escape their fate die, including those that wield quests, the game then randomly generates new NPC characters that will give the same quests to the player at a later date
-Buildings burn, but never actually destory
-Shop owners e.t.c can also die, but family will re-spawn when the town is back in order

Method #3:
-All important NPC such as those that provide the player with quests or tasks cannot be killed by the Dragon attack, and somehow always manage to escape
-Some buildings burn and get destroyed, while others only burn
-Other random NPC's die...and re-spawn later
-Shop owners, cannot die, they lock up their shop and bolt themselves in tight and safe...

3 different ways they can handle dynamic dragon town attacks. :celebration:

This would be my scenario


PC approaches a city, restarting the spawn sequence.

1. Dragon sighted.
2. City watch raises the alarm.
3. Townspeople run inside and hide
4. Nameless NPCs such as guards and such stay outside to give the sense the city is under attack.
5. The guards suffer large loses, but typically have just enough manpower to drive the dragon off (not kill it) without the PC's help.
6. non-generic NPCs come out of hiding and assess the damage, clean up and return to life with maybe a few new lines of dialog for a few days.

this will ensure cities come under attack, but dose not destroy the game after a week game-weeks.

I am not too keen on towns being destroyed by dragons either, unless it's scripted.

Both above comments are good suggestions!

Personally, this is my favourite method, since I don't like the idea of an entire town suddenly being replaced by their siblings or children.




That would be nice, but it would be good to have some generic civilians as casualties so that not only guards die in the attack. So the way of preventing dead towns is to teleport non-generic NPCs into their respective buildings whenever a Dragon attacks?

Sounds pretty good according to me. I just hope that it takes a while for the townspeople to clean up the mess.

Yeah, and maybe somehow block off the cells of burning buildings, if any. Or at least set their interiors on fire as well. I really hope the AI of the Dragons don't somehow go wrong and they all attack a town at once. :flamed:

With NPCs not being able to speak and what not I think they should be able to die and be replaced by models of the same race/gender, however Scripted NPCs that you can converse with will escape. As for buildings, The Majority Should be able to get damaged and burnt but when you come back there will by people rebuilding them and within one week game time its back to normal. I don't see why this can't happen if you've got people going off to work and carry things through town then why cant they have animations where they are carrying stuff around buildings, and looking like they are building. Even if it is just 1 animation of a guy looking like hes cutting wood or stone it would greatly increase RP.

I hope the dragons wont be able to kill quest characters.
like for instance your heading back to town with a nearly completed quest, and the you see a dragon frying the man you was going to turn in your quest at.



wont NPC's be able to speak? or what am i missing.

Many non quest NPC wont have dialog options. Yeah they Might Say some thing while walking past but you wont be able to engage them in conversation. the was an interview on Xbox live with Todd Howard he mentioned it when he spoke about the new Conversing system.

They sure as hell will try. And they will also be capable of dealing serious damage to the town structures. Also, dragons raiding towns in some cases will be a 'randomly' generated event. Pretty, damn neat if you ask me.

All of above was mentioned by The Director himself, in an hour long podcast recorded for GI.

NPCs can run inside of their cellars and whatnot.

Just like in Fallout 3/NV were you will hear some people having some sort of speech but you cant enter dialogue with them

Hopefully the guards AI is good enough to fend off the dragon with marginal success, to a point where the dragon is better off leaving than staying. Alduin may be a god, but the rest of the dragons are as mortal as anyone else.

If people die in attacks, then people die in attacks. I know a lot of people have a 'completionism' or 'perfect game' complex that makes them want to keep everyone alive, but that's not a very realistic gameworld. It's a brutal location in the midst of a civil war and being ransacked by dragons. If NPCs die through the actions of nonscripted events involving dragons, then I applaud the devs for making a gameworld that shows no more mercy to the NPCs than it does the PC.

I hope they're smart enough to run indoors and stay there until I deal with it, or I hope they wont kill each other during the situation like the guards in oblivion did when you punched someone.

If citys turn into Kvatch It will be game breaking for me.