philfredobob wrote:I like oblivions cities because of their storys , all the citizens would comment on each other and it felt more like a community
I like skyrims cities because most people have a mini quest for you to do and it felt more alive
What do you mean? They just had the exact same speech over and over, to each other. "Do you like the Gray Fox?" "No, hang him" "Do you like the Gray Fox?" "Yep he cares about the little people." No one was unique and you didn't know what you said. And Skyrim npcs actually talk to each other, they don't say, "mmmn I love mudcrab meat.", or, "Here's a trainer." All npcs were copies of each other. I miss these things from Oblivion: the Arena, Sheogorath, my own order of knights, Martin(who actually treated you like a friend), and sigil stones. And of course their are no book stores, the Imperials love books, not the Nords. And you not makes a city really a community? Varity in voice actors.
No , no , i think you misunderstood me , i mean that when you talk to a citizen and ask them about their city , they would describe their squabbles with other citizens , and i liked that , i dont mean NPC conversations ...
and i miss martin also .. he was good
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Evil-i wrote:I'm not too sure how medieval towns were set up in terms of business competition, but since most towns were under the control of a lord or duke or someone who represented the authority of the ruling monarch, it seems to me that having just one-of-everything would meet society's needs. Having multiple similar merchants compete for the same limited customer base probably wouldn't have resulted in the modern-day model of retail competition, rather, in the medieval mindset it could have resulted in feuding and the accompanying shenanigans, which would have been a continuous source of bother for the town's "ruler"....
Dude— guilds.
Multiple merchants, but at different tiers of skill and selection. That would sure beat the notion of going to the same blacksmith you bought your first Iron Sword at Level 5, only to find he's been making a veritable battery of Ebony weapons when you're at Level 47.
Baurus: Our job is to get the Emperor out of situations like this. Though I'll admit, things aren't going exactly to plan.
Casandra: At the moment, the deadliest weapon at my disposal is a goblin's head on a stick. I'd be worried if this was the plan.
philfredobob wrote:whiterun has 2 Blacksmiths though , and Riften has 2 General shops , and then theres always the khajiit caravans , but their never there when you need em
I truly miss the book shops .. i shall never finish my ''A Dance in Fire'' series , because i can never find Volume 5 ..
philfredobob wrote:whiterun has 2 Blacksmiths though , and Riften has 2 General shops , and then theres always the khajiit caravans , but their never there when you need em
I truly miss the book shops .. i shall never finish my ''A Dance in Fire'' series , because i can never find Volume 5 ..
You can find it in Mistveil Keep.
Really ? thanks
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It's reasonabily easy to create a mod with bookstores in some major cities, and some clothing shops too, shields, etc. It might be an interesting thing for me to test my abilities xD
Evil-i wrote:I'm not too sure how medieval towns were set up in terms of business competition, but since most towns were under the control of a lord or duke or someone who represented the authority of the ruling monarch, it seems to me that having just one-of-everything would meet society's needs. Having multiple similar merchants compete for the same limited customer base probably wouldn't have resulted in the modern-day model of retail competition, rather, in the medieval mindset it could have resulted in feuding and the accompanying shenanigans, which would have been a continuous source of bother for the town's "ruler"....
Dude— guilds.
Multiple merchants, but at different tiers of skill and selection. That would sure beat the notion of going to the same blacksmith you bought your first Iron Sword at Level 5, only to find he's been making a veritable battery of Ebony weapons when you're at Level 47.
Every guild always strives to be the best at its craft. Why would an apprentice join a guild that was committed to mediocrity?
Same reasons why people work for subpar companies today. Anyway I think the idea is that at level 5 you can only buy from their apprentice craftsman but at level 40 their expert, thus explaining why the same shop gives you different inventories for different levels. The better craftsmen don't want to be giving their best work away to just anyone.
I have a few problems with the cities in skyrim for one, I don't believe it would be hard to make say, 30 preset houses for each city nothing special about them, with interiors and all, and use each preset say 3 or 4 times in a city, then add two very simple npcs for each house, then add some "traveler" npcs and the cities would come alive. then throw in a few inns and merchants and the game experience (for me anyway) would be improved drastically.
I there, Pleased to meet ya... What you doing in my waters?
And all those NPCs, what purpose would they have? What quests would they be linked to? what would they do besides stand around and go "have you seen mudcrabs today ?"?
So where is my dream? It is the continuation of reality. But where is my reality? It is at the end of your dream.
Multiple merchants, but at different tiers of skill and selection. That would sure beat the notion of going to the same blacksmith you bought your first Iron Sword at Level 5, only to find he's been making a veritable battery of Ebony weapons when you're at Level 47.
Every guild always strives to be the best at its craft. Why would an apprentice join a guild that was committed to mediocrity?
In such a game world, you're meeting the various shops in one particular snapshot of time, with a startup who dreams one day of mastering the craft, and masters who are just about ready to retire and make way for younger blood.
And if you don't like such a static representation, then make it dynamic within the game: the quality of a shop's merchandise improves by how much business you do with them.
Take a low-tier shop and make them your go-to spot for all your needs. The more money you pump into that shop, the faster their wares improve. However, should you abandon that shop as soon as you can afford to patronize a higher-tier market, and the lowly shop will never get above bargain-bin quality. The highest-level shops will improve much more slowly, or offer you discounts rather than go above their quality cap.
Baurus: Our job is to get the Emperor out of situations like this. Though I'll admit, things aren't going exactly to plan.
Casandra: At the moment, the deadliest weapon at my disposal is a goblin's head on a stick. I'd be worried if this was the plan.
I'm VERY conflicted about Skyrim's Cities versus Oblivion's Cities. But if I had to choose, I'd go for Oblivion's, simply because they felt more like 'home' to me. Walking into Cheydinhal or Bruma always made me happy. In Skyrim, they just feel a little different. It's hard to explain what I'm saying.
I'm not saying I dislike the cities in Skyrim, I love them; it's just that Oblivion's cities were perfect.
Frankly, I agree with pretty much everything SajuukKhar's been saying.
Some people have a great graphics card and more processor cores than they know what to do with, but they're easily outnumbered by folks stuck with a lower end machine or a console to transport them to Tamriel. People can play around with their PCs to achieve better performance in difficult to play areas, but Xbox users can't... and while certainly admirable given that console's age and specs, Skyrim's performance on the Xbox pales in comparison to run of the mill, non-gaming PCs.
Other than the practical benefits of taking a more conservative approach to city cells, I'm devoutly opposed on principle to game design favoring quantity over quality. While I certainly agree it would be awesome if major cities were bustling metropolises, I'm absolutely unwilling to waste processing power on filler content, which is what the overwhelming majority would be.
My first and foremost concern is gameplay. While aesthetics are of critical importance, ultimately I'm still playing a video game, which means function is more crucial than form. Second, the greatest draw of these games (besides modding possibilities for most PC gamers) is the setting, and I'm much more interested in seeing imaginative, creative approaches to fantasy cities that perpetuate the game's fantastical ambiance than a bunch of by-the-numbers medieval towns.
Skyrim did a pretty good job in both regards. There's Markarth, the city built on a city; not only was a mining city carved out of the rock housing the expansive remains of an ancient, more advanced civilization a great concept, but it lends the city itself a distinctive look and feel. There's plenty of points of interest that set Markarth apart from the other cities in Skyrim. Jail sentences are served out in the mine. The ongoing conflict with the savage Forsworn pose a constant threat to the inhabitants of the city and its surrounding settlements... but it's not as one-sided an affair as Markarth would have you believe.
Markarth may not be as big or necessarily as impressive as Vivec or the Imperial City in terms of sheer size, but to me cities like Markarth are infinitely preferable because they have much more character. (Not saying Markarth is "better" than either of those two cities, just comparing the style/approach from a design standpoint.)
There's Windhelm, which has an ancient look befitting its role as the oldest settlement in Skyrim. It's home to the heart of the rebellion and a sizable number of Dunmer refugees from Morrowind, who don't always get along with their Nord neighbors. There's Whiterun, the "City upon a Hill," which besides being the base of operations for many players, is one of the few hospitable, comfortable, homey-feeling places in the largely unwelcoming land of Skyrim. There's the proud city of Solitude overlooking the sea... the shady den of thieves, cutthroats, and corruption that is Riften... and Beth did a good job of ensuring that even the smaller holds/settlements such as Dawnstar and Morthal had interesting quests/roles attached to them.
There might not be a ton of NPCs in each town/city and none of them may be terribly interesting, but there is no shortage of Radiant fetch quests; while I would have definitively preferred unique, handcrafted quests (quantity vs. quality), but the small favors the player is able to perform for many of the townspeople supplies completionists with "things to do" and hey, it's still at least something, which is better than a couple throwaway lines of dialogue shared with several other NPCs.
I'm not saying Skyrim is perfect by any means and I have a ton of quibbles with Beth's overall direction in terms of game design... but I am satisfied with their approach to Skyrim's cities. It's totally believable that these cities/towns only need one smith, one general store, one alchemy shop, etc. I would have liked to see more magical-oriented vendors and at least one bookstore somewhere in Skyrim, but hey, no big D.
Vivec didn't have character? There's history in everyone of those cantons. Malacath was just the obligatory "City built on a bigger city". And of course the radiant fetch quests were coupled by many hand crafted fetch quests (Retrieve the statue for the falmor guy). Or really lack luster ones like escaping from the silver mine, "Im planning a daring escape, which is to open the metal door with a key I had all this time, even though we had flipping pickaxes all this time too.
In terms of size, its not hardware limitations, its the technology limitations on Bethesdas behalf. C'mon look what the Unreal Engine and Batman: Arkham City did, big world, heaps of detail and you could see it from one end to the other.
I was playing the Nehrim mod for Oblivion lately, and it has some decent sized cities. And even with my monster computer, it was chugging because of the poor game engine, same goes for Skyrim.
SajuukKhar wrote:30 preset houses would be a murder for CPU.
And all those NPCs, what purpose would they have? What quests would they be linked to? what would they do besides stand around and go "have you seen mudcrabs today ?"?
Yep, real murder for up-to-date (not even high end) CPUs, which are rarely being used at half of what they're capable of. Assassins Creed, which has gigantic cities with hundreds or more people, only runs on NASA computers, too, because regular CPUs wouldn't be able to handle that. Oh, wait... I really miss the times when games were developed with high end computers in mind, not ancient consoles from 6 years ago. I don't wanna start a flame war here, but the fact of the matter is that consoles are holding game development back.
And what purpose would all those NPCs serve? Immersion! They don't all have to have unique dialog. I don't mind if 95% are just standing/walking around and mumbling stuff that you don't understand. I'd take this any day over a handful of NPCs that tell me they work at Belethor's shop every time I run past them. Heck, I'd take text-based dialogs a la Morrowind over voice acting anytime because of that. It allows a lot more and unique dialog, deeper conversations, etc.
Crepe the Ashlander wrote:To be fair Assassins Creed runs perfectly on all third gen consoles.
The amount of data used by Assain's Creed is no where near as much as Skyrim, if it is it is used in different areas. And since everything is handcrafted we will probably never go back to anything the size of Arena again, especially when npcs are involved.
Justice knight wrote:Oh and listen to Br3ad he speaks wisdom.
Belthazor wrote:And what purpose would all those NPCs serve? Immersion! They don't all have to have unique dialog. I don't mind if 95% are just standing/walking around and mumbling stuff that you don't understand. I'd take this any day over a handful of NPCs that tell me they work at Belethor's shop every time I run past them. Heck, I'd take text-based dialogs a la Morrowind over voice acting anytime because of that. It allows a lot more and unique dialog, deeper conversations, etc.
Having NPCs just to have NPCs is kinda dumb.
Having all these random NPCs that dont have unique dialog standing around only makes them feel exceedingly artificial and detracts from the overall game experience. If they dont have any problems, or anything to say, they just feel really fake.
Also, I suggest you go back and play Morrowind, even with text bsed dialog, 90% of dialog was the same random rumors, and the EXACT same responses on subjects from people. Having everyone say the, word for word, exact same thing, itsn't that deep. At least in Skyrim we have tone and pronunciation, to affect how NPCs say things and it gives each one a more unique flavor.
So where is my dream? It is the continuation of reality. But where is my reality? It is at the end of your dream.
SajuukKhar wrote:
Having NPCs just to have NPCs is kinda dumb.
Having all these random NPCs that dont have unique dialog standing around only makes them feel exceedingly artificial and detracts from the overall game experience. If they dont have any problems, or anything to say, they just feel really fake.
Also, I suggest you go back and play Morrowind, even with text bsed dialog, 90% of dialog was the same random rumors, and the EXACT same responses on subjects from people. Having everyone say the, word for word, exact same thing, itsn't that deep. At least in Skyrim we have tone and pronunciation, to affect how NPCs say things and it gives each one a more unique flavor.
It's neither dumb nor artificial. Well, artificial maybe, but certainly not dumb. It makes cities feel much more alive and gives them a more realistic feeling. Why must everyone have a problem for you to solve? In that case, each city could consist of maybe about 10 people, because everyone else has no purpose there.
As for Morrowind: I admit that it wasn't perfect. But you got more info out of those NPCs than from any NPC in Oblivion or Skyrim. And it's entirely possible to expand on that, give them unique dialog, etc. It also makes development for quest mods a lot easier. Sure, now we have stuff like tonality and pronunciation. But we also have dozens of people sharing the same voice, which also takes away from the uniqueness of NPCs.
Sajuukhar you have a good point, I must admit, I have heard 'I could kill that guar, those boots are ruined now', one too many times now, but it can't take that long just to think of a couple, unique lines of dialogue for each new added NPC.
Belthazor wrote:
It's neither dumb nor artificial. Well, artificial maybe, but certainly not dumb. It makes cities feel much more alive and gives them a more realistic feeling. Why must everyone have a problem for you to solve? In that case, each city could consist of maybe about 10 people, because everyone else has no purpose there.
As for Morrowind: I admit that it wasn't perfect. But you got more info out of those NPCs than from any NPC in Oblivion or Skyrim. And it's entirely possible to expand on that, give them unique dialog, etc. It also makes development for quest mods a lot easier. Sure, now we have stuff like tonality and pronunciation. But we also have dozens of people sharing the same voice, which also takes away from the uniqueness of NPCs.
If having random people with no personality stand around and say "Have you seen mudcrabs? disgusting creatures" and have no personality beyond that is them being "alive" I want to know what sort of dead world you live on. Also all the people in the cities we have now have a purpose, and they have more then 10 people, sans Winterhold, unless you count the College.
I disagree about getting more info out of them, a handful of characters, like Dagoth-Ur, and vivec gave you more info yes, but the VAST majority of NPCs gave you nothing beyond the same "rumor" dialog. I have gotten more useful information out of skyrim's NPcs then I ever did out of the majority of Morrowind's npcs.
So where is my dream? It is the continuation of reality. But where is my reality? It is at the end of your dream.
The only reason I would want tons of useless NPCs is to go on a werewolf rampage, and see how many people I could take down before the guards got me. I liked Morrowind and Oblivion's city size, but they just seemed like empty shells. Skyrim has just seemed more immersive. The only part I didn't like was one guy in Whiterun asking "Have you ever been to the Cloud District? Of course you haven't." The city really isn't big enough to assume I haven't took the 3 seconds to sprint to the Cloud District. Other than that one little thing I loved Skyrim's cities. They are the appropriate size for the climate. Tundra climates generally don't have huge settlements, due to the availability of arable land to support a huge population.
Dude— guilds.
, and Riften has 2 General shops , and then theres always the khajiit caravans , but their never there when you need em 
