Alright, so, out of interest, I followed this traveling NPC who claimed that he was traveling to Windhelm to join the Stormcloaks. I followed him all the way from Fort Greymoor near Whiterun and sure enough he made it all the way to Windhelm, but when he opened the large door, he never spawned on the other side.

Now I never actually expected him to actually join up with the Stormcloaks like he ckaimed, but I was hoping he would wander around inside inside Windhelm. A lot of NPCs you follow on the roads just disappear into thin air after awhile, so I was surprised he actually made it to where he said he was going. Something to think about for the future or the next TES game, how about traveling NPCs actually go where they say they are going and do what they say they are going to do. I think that would be pretty cool. There would actually be a reason to follow traveling NPCs around so you could see what they were doing, rather than have travelers as just a decoration.

would be great, would add realism to the game

Yeah, I mean I WANT to follow them but all they do is vanish eventually. There should be something like what I mentioned. That would be a reward in and of itself. If there was a purpose and goal for traveling NPCs that we could investigate, it would just be awesome.

I always chat to travelling farmers if they give the wrong answer ( Im off to join the stormcloaks ) I cut there heads off . I do have to wonder though why are there so many farmers wondering about and so few merchants and other travellers.

I've seen him inside the Palace of the Kings once, just inside the door.

yeah, you would expect to see a lot more merchants travelling on the roads instead of farmers. On one of my characters all I ever see are Imperials on patrol or farmers claiming to be attacked by a dragon. You would expect to see more travellers travelling skyrim.

Given all the encounters on the road come out of the random encounters bag, pretty soon you've seen them all. and often they don't make any sense - the people heading to the wedding heading in totally the wrong direction, imperials wandering about outside Windhelm, the woman who has escaped Mistwatch on the other side of the map and so on. I think it would be far better if random encounters were restricted to cells they made sense in, all people did indeed go where they say they're going and the themed random encounters were mixed up with 'traveller', 'merchants', 'adventurer' type just general people on the road and increased in frequency. This would make the world seem much more real and alive.

Agreed. The woman from Mistwatch is one of the worst. "Point me in the direction of the nearest town." Uhm, you managed to bypass Ivarstead, Whiterun,, Rorikstead, Dragonbridge AND Solitude on your way here - not to mention ALL main roads, apparently.

I've also run into her just outside Riverwood - with her coming from that very direction...

I ran into her near the Dawnstar Khajiit camp spot once.