Skyrim; Populatuion: 750

[MonsterMonkey]

I don't know when or where you have seen another game with a bigger map and more cities maybe FNV but Skyrim is medieval style what did you expect a GTA like ?

 

As far as i know big land is bethesda's stuff, i never saw some other games with as much things to see if you keep on using fast travel it's surely looks like "not so big" but try to go by foot from east to west, prepare for a 15/20 min journey ( without fighting) in GTA San Andreas it's 5/10 min on foot.

 

And about population 750 is plenty, i'm sure there isn't many game where you have more.

 

I mean real NPC's (own named clothed and with little dialogues) in GTA (to continue the comparison) population is random cloned npc that's an optic illusion to make you feel overpopulated city

Edited November 28, 2011 by MonsterMonkey

[ltlukelt]

And about population 750 is plenty, i'm sure there isn't many game where you have more.

 

Morrowind had 1,195 :wink:

[MonsterMonkey]

You're right but i didn't feel like Oblivion was so bigger i didn't feel like there was way more people in Oblivion.

skyrim seems to me like having more original NPC's with their own way and most of the time they have little dialogues and little side quests.

[danathan]

You could add a lot more NPCs, but they would have to be generic npcs like guards. One streamline npc type that does not have too much interaction.

 

IE. "Citizen of #"

Though you would need to justify a town that has housing for X amount of people, but has 10X amount of people in the city.

[Logiwink]

I do agree with the OP. However, let's all just remember that the folks at Bethesda were foremost concerned with making a functional game that can run on a variety of consoles and PCs with wildly different hardware. All the open-world games that Bethesda has created (from Oblivion to Skyrim) have been representative - obviously a lot of these locations should have more people, houses, shops, etc. I applaud new efforts to create ambitious mods like this, but I just wanted to give some props to BGS who created a ridiculous amount of content for Skyrim.

 

Also, more NPCs could result in more "Voice Actor 1" phenomena if you reuse existing resources. What I mean is that feeling you got in Oblivion that there were maybe 12 people in the world and you kept talking to slightly different versions of them. Assassins Creed is a good model, but remember you couldn't talk to almost any of those people.

 

That being said best of luck to these sorts of mods! More content is good! Load them all and let the players sort them out!

Edited November 28, 2011 by Logiwink

[CampanaAliquanta]

I like the idea of adding a few more NPCs in the city, even if they don't have homes. Or just assign random NPCs labelled "Commoners" and "Servants" to the houses that are already there. One and two person homes just don't seem realistic, and there really aren't enough kids for a world that seems full of dirt, disease and disaster. Or maybe their healing magic and potions are so good they don't have huge families.

 

One thing I would like to have removed are the random comments NPCs direct at you when you stray within a few metres of them. It's as if the devs are trying to remind you that you're the centre the world revolves around, but I find it quite immersion breaking.

 

I'd like to write some random NPC conversations that they can have amongst themselves while you walk past, although no idea when I will get round to doing that since it's not at the top of my list. And I'd need to find people to voice act it, and a sound engineer to put it together in the right format, and someone to script it in...maybe one day.

Edited November 28, 2011 by CampanaAliquanta

[NathanRyan]

Don't get me started on the Mage College.

 

* Students of magic should be hustling and bustling their way through the hallways and corridors (be they court mages-in-training for the Jarl or Imperials looking to apply their skills when rejoining the army.)

* The teachers should have their own homes off campus, not sleeping in their small rooms like a sleepy-time village.

* The students should have to sleep in those cramped facilities.

* NPCs should be randomly giving lectures, demonstrating magic, and generally experimenting with spells (basically what's been going on during your quests but practiced by others.)

* Conjuration students should be walking with Atronochs or their Dead Thralls.

* Destruction students should be practicing their spells on Restoration students using Wards.

* Illusion students should be turning invisible, provoking guards, and calming them again.

* Alteration students should be practicing their Skin spells with Conjuration student's Bound Weapons.

* Tests should be handed out by facility or student-to-student quizzing Players on random spell names/facts and are awarded skillpoints for passing (or decay for failing.)

* The Nords should be petitioning the Mage against abstain from raiding their burial grounds, this could lead to conflict and high quality quest material.

* The researchers should be launching excavations to ancient Dwemer ruins, Nord burial grounds, and sites of interest.

* The researches should be tasking students to hunt local animals (or Werewolves and Vampires) for their projects.

 

Yes, massive suggestion, but right now the Mages College doesn't feel like a College -- it's more like a hospice for practitioner's of magick.

 

i completely agree, but think of how that will effect gameplay. it would slow the game down by tons! i think what you're suggesting should be another mod all together. maybe a collaboration. perhaps do up the on-campus housing and give that to the teachers, then a separate housing for the students off campus. (fraternity? hmm) then obviously you would have to add extra rooms (lecture halls, big training grounds, great hall (for eating). and so on and so forth. i could go on all night about ways to improve it but i wont. what you have i think is an amazing idea, but maybe should be a separate mod.

[AsrielBelacqua]

You could add more farmhouses to the regions surrounding the cities that could realistically have 10+ NPCs each by placing the Lord of the Manor, his children, wife, and servants inside the manor. Outside there could be some farmland and a few peasant shacks. The peasants work the land and never enter the Manor. Add some poor kids running around and you have yourself a realistic population in a relatively small area.

 

For specific recommendations,

 

I think you could make all the buildings in Riften one story higher and add Tenements/Apartments you could fill with poorer residents. The Ratway could also be expanded with "safer" zones filled with the poor

 

Whiterun: more farms, like i described above

 

Windhelm: more farms and mills along the river... it's a huge river, there should be lots of mills using that potential

 

Winterhold: maybe rebuild some of it, I know it got destroyed but it doesn't have to be a village now

 

Dawnstar: add more docks and buildings

 

Solitude: build slums outside the walls and under the sea-arch and further along the river.. this city should be much larger than it is

 

Falkreath: add more hunter camps and maybe a new village somewhere, and expand the graveyard.. NPCs say its huge but the one in Windhelm is even bigger

 

Markarth: just make it way taller, you could also make the Warrens much deeper

 

I definitely like all of these ideas, especially the addition of farms/mills to the land. It seems severely lacking in this department. Especially since most of the farms are like... 12ftx12ft plots of land that have 10 crops total in them.

 

Only one thing I'd really add to this list is for the rebuilt Winterhold suggestion. It was destroyed and would be hard to get people to come back, theoretically, because of all the problems. Adding a quest like there was for Kvatch ("Rebuilding Kvatch" mod, IIRC, can't remember who created it but it was pretty good), where you help gather resources and/or tell random NPCs wandering the roads about the city and its accomplishments/about the reformation of the college (if you're the arch-mage), I think, would help.

 

I know that the above questline/rebuilding suggestion is a huge undertaking, but most of the suggestions in this thread are too, so I thought I'd add my ridiculous suggestion. :P

[yuikhee]

I would like to see a huge Elven city. Being winners of the great war and all.. you don't see them too much..

[gamefever]

I don't think it'd slow the game down for people with decent graghics card and more than 4 GB of ram please just crowd the streets. You can always make a Low

Pop mod after filling the streets and lands with houses to your hearts content.