Inns: all the same?

[todd92371]

Has anyone noticed the repetitive nature of all the inns in Skyrim? There just doesn't seem to be a lot of variety in them.

[BrettM]

I wouldn't say "all" of the inns. The inns in the five major cities (Whiterun, Riften, Windhelm, Solitude, and Markarth) are all unique. The inns in the four smaller cities and the various towns share the same basic design. One could make the same point about the dwellings of the jarls, since the four longhouses all share the same layout while the five palaces are all unique.

 

How many designs are really necessary for all the minor inns? Maybe they're all part of the same chain, the Yellow Roof Inns of Skyrim. I'm sure the artists and designers could have taken an extra year or so making sure that every building asset was unique, bloating the game files beyond belief. It's probably for the best that they didn't.

Edited April 9, 2012 by BrettM

[chaospearl]

I've not only noticed it, it's one of my top five aggravations with the game. Every inn seems to be the exact same building with the same layout and the same furniture. Inns in Oblivion felt unique, probably because they were unique. Some were large airy buildings with an entire second or even a third story with a balcony, perhaps a richly decorated hallway of four or five guest rooms. Some were smaller with only a modest few rooms, and some offered only a basic ladder up to a hayloft that the innkeeper would let you sleep in for a few coins. A few had just the one floor and felt dark and cramped. I believe one had the guest rooms in the basement. And there were a couple that offered food and drink but had no guest rooms at all. Every inn was completely different.

 

In Skyrim, every inn is the same inn. Literally. Not only the same building, but also the same floorplan and furniture. I really don't think it would have taken that much effort to use a different structure for the dozen or so inns in the game, so that at least it didn't create an immersion-killing deja vu every time I step into an inn and can't tell that this isn't the same place from a couple towns away. It's like the inns were literally made by a copy-and-paste function.

 

If they were truly short of time and resources*, there's no need for each inn to have a unique building created for it; there are plenty of existing buildings available in the CK. It would've been perhaps an hour's work to create various inns using a selection of pre-made buildings instead of making just one and then copying and pasting it whenever an inn was needed somewhere. Heck, even adding a small foyer-type space or some partial walls or just putting the identical large fire pits in different alignments would have helped prevent the feeling that the outer doors of the inns in each town all lead to the same interior room.

 

* I somehow have the feeling that the development team was pressed for time because of marketing's brilliant (/sarcasm) "11-11-11" release date concept. That may be one reason why the game wasn't playtested as thoroughly as it should have been and why certain aspects feel a bit rushed or rough and unpolished. Just speculation on my part.

[todd92371]

I've not only noticed it, it's one of my top five aggravations with the game. Every inn seems to be the exact same building with the same layout and the same furniture. Inns in Oblivion felt unique, probably because they were unique. Some were large airy buildings with an entire second or even a third story with a balcony, perhaps a richly decorated hallway of four or five guest rooms. Some were smaller with only a modest few rooms, and some offered only a basic ladder up to a hayloft that the innkeeper would let you sleep in for a few coins. A few had just the one floor and felt dark and cramped. I believe one had the guest rooms in the basement. And there were a couple that offered food and drink but had no guest rooms at all. Every inn was completely different.

 

In Skyrim, every inn is the same inn. Literally. Not only the same building, but also the same floorplan and furniture. I really don't think it would have taken that much effort to use a different structure for the dozen or so inns in the game, so that at least it didn't create an immersion-killing deja vu every time I step into an inn and can't tell that this isn't the same place from a couple towns away. It's like the inns were literally made by a copy-and-paste function.

 

If they were truly short of time and resources*, there's no need for each inn to have a unique building created for it; there are plenty of existing buildings available in the CK. It would've been perhaps an hour's work to create various inns using a selection of pre-made buildings instead of making just one and then copying and pasting it whenever an inn was needed somewhere. Heck, even adding a small foyer-type space or some partial walls or just putting the identical large fire pits in different alignments would have helped prevent the feeling that the outer doors of the inns in each town all lead to the same interior room.

 

* I somehow have the feeling that the development team was pressed for time because of marketing's brilliant (/sarcasm) "11-11-11" release date concept. That may be one reason why the game wasn't playtested as thoroughly as it should have been and why certain aspects feel a bit rushed or rough and unpolished. Just speculation on my part.

Amen Chaospearl. My thoughts exactly. This may be good working material for the brilliant modders out there.

[chaospearl]

This may be good working material for the brilliant modders out there.

 

The only reason I haven't stepped up to the plate on this is because I'm fairly sure somebody else is working on it, or at least had plans to. Basically, a week or two ago I was over at the Bethesda forums reading an older thread about the navmesh bug. At some point in that thread, someone mentioned a "Diverse Inns" mod. I couldn't tell from the post if they were actively working on it, or just had the idea in the pipeline and planned to do it in the future, possibly after the bug is fixed. I don't even recall who it was. I only noticed it because I'd been thinking that I might do something along those lines myself, since the copy-and-paste inns bother me so much. I'm currently in the middle of a small mod of my own, so I haven't gotten around to figuring out who originally mentioned the inn mod and whether that person has actually started working on it.

[DreamKingMods]

There's a mod being worked on called Unique Taverns by Meek (aka Shezrie, of Oblivion modding fame) that aims to address this. There's a work-in-progress thread at the Bethesda forum.