... Having a house for every NPC is what made Imperial City small to begin with. The crowds would just be randomly generated NPCs that wouldn't have much to them. An inventory, they would run away if hit, and would eventually disappear so they wouldn't need a place to sleep.

Since they are not physically capable of making a huge F city, they would have to make cities FEEL bigger. How do we do that, hm? Putting butt loads (I use this term in the lightest possible sense; not in the magnitude of AC) of people. We just need filler NPC's for that.

Not in the magnitude you believe I am after. For Christ's sake, I said "like" Assassin's Creed cities. Since cities won't be as big, they'd need to make it FEEL big.

I'm sure I speak for roughly 97% of people when I say that I would rather not have NPCs that just run away and then disappear. In fact what you are after would make the game, in my humble opinion, worse.

You definitely seem to be after AC with magic.

yes its only three spells with 85 levels

:P

I suspect that one thing which will make Skyrim's cities feel busier than those in Oblivion is that NPCs will have jobs, and we'll see them doing things like chopping wood or whatever.

But heres the deal breaker, I'm not! Just don't want big cities with 15 inhabitants with what you call a "background".

Which to be entirely honest is just a name and a sleep, eat and dump taking schedule.

its better than a no name, and sleep

How? Give me one good reason you need Amantius Branus Amalganus, beggar extraordinaire, to get up at 2, stand around eat at 6 and later sleep at 11? There's no depth to it. It's just a pointless schedule for a pointless character.

I mean there'd still be these pointless characters which you so love... Just some filler characters to walk around the city streets.

Not to join in on the gang up on the OP, but im gonna join in on the gang up on the OP. I have to say I really hope that Bethesda doesn't ever take the OPs vision of cities in their Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. It never bothered me the number of NPC's in these cities, and they always felt alive enough to me. There's no purpose to having thousands of random, nameless, faceless NPC's in the game like that. I would much prefer fewer, named NPC's with nothing total about but rumors, but actually have a life / schedule / home / belongings / possessions than more NPC's that do nothing but take up space. Quality over quantity. Having a ton of NPC's in game for no other reason but to fill the screen serves no purpose what so ever and will do nothing to make Skyrim a better game.

Gang up? Two people is a gang up?

I just found it as a way to liven up the cities because I often found myself roaming Choroll or Skingrad and only finding myself with a couple of NPC's at a time. The numerous pubs and inns around Imperial city
were deserted and it just felt lonely half of the time. There were like 10 residences per district too, awfully little.

All I am saying is add some filler NPC's is all. You can keep your pointless Abanus Clarkikus Calcanus, owner of the Calacanus residence that has no background whatsoever and your NPC's with the one rumor;
just make "live" cities actually LIVE cities.

Fallout had the excuse of not having so many people because it was a post apocalyptic wasteland, but not Skyrim.

And tell me... what quality are you talking about?

Can you go ahead and open up the CS, make an NPC, give him a schedule, give him a personality, give him a house and a family please.

Then come back and have some idea of what you're talking about.

for their to be a lot of npc's i want there to be a lot of houses, everyone needs a place to live, this isnt fallout where like 8 random people all bunk up in some shack because there isnt enough spaces for all the houses, and yeah, everyone better have names.

Okay then...

Homluss Mannus Likesrumouruss

He sleeps inside the Arena and wakes up angrily everytime the arena grand champion fights someone.

He sleeps all day.

When entering combat after he wakes up, he yells "Ha!" "Hoo!" and when you kill him, he yields a bronze shortsword and 4 coins.

If you find any other like that living in Talos Plaza District... Your quality over quantity bull might actually make sense... But you seem to like pointless roaming NPC's that you can talk to.

Tell me, did you befriend one of them through speech and role played that you went to his house everyday for tea? 'Cause it seems to me like you do that.

We finally are able to use streaming elements (like flamethrower), epic looking pbAOE, and placed glyphs.


So much better than just increasing damage.

Really don't see the point of having names, but having a house for every single randomly generated NPC would be impossible. Remember most people walking the streets of say, Ancient Rome, would be immigrants, traveling merchants and their residents, being so many, would crowd in the same house.

The Filler NPC's could walk from city to city and disappear eventually, creating new ones as they leave.

I think I pretty much told you what those qualities were in my mind. Not everyone has to have an in depth backstory cuz not everyone in life has an in depth backstory. But everyone does have a life. And considering what im looking for in Elder Scrolls games, i want NPC's to have a life, not just be randomly generated space fillers. Thus i want my NPC's to have homes, schedules, jobs, possessions, etc. So yea i can go into Imperial City and only see a few dozen people, but they all have a home, a schedule, and something that they do even if its not much. Much better than a bunch of randomly generated space fillers that have no home or place where they belong and just aimlessly roam for the same of filling the streets. The quality of NPC's makes the city feel more "alive" to me than just a thousand random NPC's that do absolutely nothing.

Filling the streets are what we have asked for, and now get. They are important so that we feel we are in an actual town rather than a village where the person you're looking for stands out as pretty much the only one there. I'm betting they will be sort of like FONV filler characters, although I hope you have to ask filler and actual NPCs to obtain the displayed name on the NPC. So the fillers remain "Town citizen", while the real NPC change from "Town citizen" to "Named NPC" once you interact with them (unless they are obvious ones). If fillers even have dialog options, they will be the simple and generic ones that the database don't have to keep track of.

I don't expect to see a drastic decline in true NPCs, but rather an addition of fillers to make the towns feel more alive. Which *is* important. We can't get a major increase in true NPCs (regardless of engine), so it's pretty much the only option to get more living towns.

Filler NPCs that say (next to) nothing do not make "live" cities. They just make boring cities, and detract from the NPCs that are worth something. The more NPCs you have that aren't unique, the less interesting a place becomes. NPCs that have some semblence of personality, even if it's only through a couple lines of dialog, are far more important when constructing an area. Quality over quantity, with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Generic NPCs in Oblivion typically had a couple things to say about themselves, and in some cases, other NPCs would have something to say about them too (see: the Bruiants of Chorrol, Mahei and Numeen of Leyawiin, etc). I'd much rather have a dozen NPCs per town like that, than a few dozen NPCs that can't give me the time of day.

Please go to your nearest Walmart. If you find 15 people there you are playing Elder Scrolls.

These 15 people have in depth back stories to them.

One of them is a father of 20, but his children are nowhere to be found. (You'd think 20 children are a hard thing to miss)

One of them lost his arm in the great Crusader Dagon Akatoshian Superhero Wars.

One of them is called Andrew and tells you what a great place Walmart is.

One will invite you into the Walmart guild.

The other one will help you find where your lost grocery cart is.

One is a vendor, who likes you a lot and you roleplayed you have various love affairs with her outside of Walmart. OH and you Speechcraft minigamed her (she likes jokes and hates threats, the rest you don't care for) so she gives you discounts for weapons you will never buy.

One will be a beggar who will ask you for money in exchange for the location of the Black Seagull, master Herbalist.

One will ask you to aid him and his two other named, but not important, combat friends who will probably die in the assault because the AI is [censored] and there are no good target healing abilities. And once you are done with the quest and they are still alive they will just stand around with great depth.

One will be programmed to drink wine at exactly 5:57 am and who's rumors will consist of hearing another rumor about the slaughter at the church of Dibella.

And one is named Martin who will ask you to recruit 2 other named, but not important characters in the unepic fight against the Plus Sized Oblivion Gate.

The last one is a Walmartian guard who stops you for killing the rest of these NPC's for not having a backstory.

One will give an exceptionally destructive spell that you can't use because you got the quest at too high of a level and Magicka doesn't scale. She'll later tell you that she is the 16th and you should learn how to count.


THERE'S YOUR GAME.

Elder Scrolls VI: Walmart

They've already confirmed the spell system will be exactly as you've described OP. As for the cities, we'll just have to wait and see. :dance:

Thank God. Thanks for telling me that.

If I was Bethesda I'd genuinely avoid making cities like this, even it was their intention, just because of your ignorance.

I don't see what the point of this is. Xekiel wants the cities to be a certain way; some other people do not. Unfortunately for Xekiel, but fortunately for the others, Skyrim will probably be more Oblivion like than Assassin's Creed like.

You can keep bashing each other over the head with your preferences, but that's not going to make them any more than that. :shrug:

Why are you quoting a Vulcan? She had a rather ruthless side too you know. You can not defeat my Star Trek knowledge. Back on topic though, I'm just kind of worried that you won't be able to create your own spells. A lot of fun gets the kibosh when "balance" is brought up. Why shouldn't a powerful mage be able to wreck your #$%&.