No real sense of population? Opinions?

[themendios]

I never played Oblivion so maybe this is standard for this engine/game, but it feels like the cities are empty. Now Megaton is better than most in terms of population but for having its own cell, and maybe 30 residents, 15 of which are generic?

 

A mod I am thinking of will put a lot more generic people in town (and hopefully also some non-generic ones), but would this even be wanted? The only "city" that actually felt semi-populated was Rivet City and that's because it wasn't all open and empty.

 

I dunno - does this bother anyone else?

[Krypt 0011]

Yeah there doesn't seem to be a lot of people just sitting in cities.

It would be cool if they had many citizens.

I also think it'd be pretty cool to have a big city, like in the DC ruins in a couple of tall buildings or something.

[Rockatanskiy]

There is a mod called "Haven" which adds Megaton Militiamen in Megaton and outside the entrance. There are also raider attacks every so often, but the only people that will ever be in danger are the ones outside. They all only have "I have to go now" as a dialogue option, but at least they fill up Megaton nicely.

 

I also have a mod that expands Arefu. (forgot the name) It adds more houses, areas on the bottomside of the overpass, and plenty of generic citizens. Once again, they don't talk much.

 

I'm glad there are people who improve the few cities in the game. They actually almost feel like real settlements now. Now if we could only do something about those 2-house "cities" like Girdershade...

[askong72]

What I don´t understand is why they didn´t populated rivet city landing platform of the aircarft carrier with sheds or something like that. Who´s gonna use a mid broken and capsized aircarft carrier?

[Alceister]

What I don´t understand is why they didn´t populated rivet city landing platform of the aircarft carrier with sheds or something like that. Who´s gonna use a mid broken and capsized aircarft carrier?

Because building materials are not readily available, and living in a leaky, rusty shed is probably going to be less comfortable (cold, wind, rain, all that) than living in a claustrophobic aircraft carrier which at the very least has proper beds, ventilation, and heating as well as security guards.

[sombrehombre]

Just a brief comment. I think the communities will feel lived in precisely to the extent that every individual in them seems to have an agenda, from quest sources, to merchant caravans and so on. It only becomes real if theres an independent population of scavengers, farmers, herders, prostitutes and priests. We have most of these, but in truth they're mostly going through the motions, standing in place. Its hard to fathom how Rivet City, Canterbury, Big Town are even viable. I think most of the canned goods would be gone in 10 years, much less 200.

 

The world will feel somewhat inhabited when instead of random encounters, there are persistent NPCs on their own scripts (like the traders). Hunting glow-tail deer in the far north, tending crops, milking Brahmin, venturing into a collapsed mall for the nth time to scavange between the girders. And here the game runs smack into the tendency of most mods I've seen which try to make up for better skills, guns and more companions with ever more fearsome factions and creatures of the wasteland. Roaming Deathclaws herds and productive civilians don't exactly mix well. If you want an somewhat inhabited wasteland, you'll have to give up infinite levelling, a half dozen companions, and Phalanx MIRVs.

 

I'm in the camp that would like to see more detail and less technology, more immersion and less twitch action. That's the nice thing about modding, the game can approach our original idea of what it should have been...

[themendios]

Just a brief comment. I think the communities will feel lived in precisely to the extent that every individual in them seems to have an agenda, from quest sources, to merchant caravans and so on. It only becomes real if theres an independent population of scavengers, farmers, herders, prostitutes and priests. We have most of these, but in truth they're mostly going through the motions, standing in place. Its hard to fathom how Rivet City, Canterbury, Big Town are even viable. I think most of the canned goods would be gone in 10 years, much less 200.

 

The world will feel somewhat inhabited when instead of random encounters, there are persistent NPCs on their own scripts (like the traders). Hunting glow-tail deer in the far north, tending crops, milking Brahmin, venturing into a collapsed mall for the nth time to scavange between the girders. And here the game runs smack into the tendency of most mods I've seen which try to make up for better skills, guns and more companions with ever more fearsome factions and creatures of the wasteland. Roaming Deathclaws herds and productive civilians don't exactly mix well. If you want an somewhat inhabited wasteland, you'll have to give up infinite levelling, a half dozen companions, and Phalanx MIRVs.

 

I'm in the camp that would like to see more detail and less technology, more immersion and less twitch action. That's the nice thing about modding, the game can approach our original idea of what it should have been...

 

Totally agree. An easy fix would be to just add more 'Megaton Settlers' but a real awesome fix to Megaton, as examples:

 

Expand the 1 brahmin to a bunch of them, move then into a pen.

Triple (at least) the number of Scavengers, Hunters, and any other wandering NPC and have them come to Megaton into a common marketplace setup and script them to stand there for at least a day once they get there.

Personally, I think the massive amounts of ramps etc in Megaton makes it seem even more desolate, I'd like to flatten it out.

Add a half-dozen 'deputies'. Simms' ass would have gotten waxed a long time ago if he was the only one really keeping law and order.

There are a bunch more things I can think of but I'll stop there..

 

I do have to ask, though - is the engine the limitation here? I mean you give Girdershade and Arefu as examples of crappy towns, which I totally agree with - one clueless chick and one creepy stalker do not a town make. But maybe this is a limitation of the engine? IE can't have that many people in a single area in an outside cell? I don't know for sure, since the Mutant Mod Super Increased Spawns regularly has groups of 10+ raiders going at it with 10+ Outcasts while a Yao Guai pack rips apart any stragglers, it seems like it should be able to handle that in an outside cell.

 

Anyone know?

[tehfata]

I think one problem is the fact that there are so few children.

 

2 in megaton, about 2 in rivet, and no babies anywhere. No teens, nothing. it either 11 or 19 and up.

[Rockatanskiy]

I think one problem is the fact that there are so few children.

 

2 in megaton, about 2 in rivet, and no babies anywhere. No teens, nothing. it either 11 or 19 and up.

 

 

Killable children mods aside, do you really want those invincible brats running rampant? Sorry but if I meet one more Mayor McCready type child....

[FallenSword]

You know wasteland is cruel and there are many wanderers so not much people would really survive here...

 

About children... well go to the paradise, lamplight cavern has alot of those too but in my opinion it wouldn't be real to see more children running around with weapon than brotherhood of steel or raiders.