After playing through the vanilla game a few times, and all the DLC so far (Dawnguard, Hearthfire) I discovered what exactly Skyrim is missing.

Better characters.

Out of all the NPCs in the game, almost none of them have any character depth deep enough to be genuinely interesting. Sure, they say cool stuff on the surface that helps bring the towns to life (Guards, kids, food vendors) but most of them hardly have anything say beyond "Oh hey there! I'm the town Blacksmith."

When Dawnguard came out, one of the new characters, Serana, was probably the most fleshed out character to date. She has an interesting past (which she doesn't just come out and say) and the best thing yet- She actually develops as a character. Her views actually change as the questline for Dawnguard progresses. And Bethesda really nailed her passive dialog too such as "Is this a dwarven city? I can't believe they'd let it get so run down." whenever you take her into a Dwemer ruin.

Context sensitive dialogue really brought her to life as a character and increases the immersion factor greatly. So to sum it all up, I think we need more characters with these traits. Shopkeepers who actually have interesting stories to tell, Townspeople whom you must earn their trust (small radient quest?) or have a silver tongue (speech) to learn their pasts, and compelling companions who I actually want to go exploring with, rather than using them as pack mules for loot.

Mjoll The Lioness is one of the Well-Thought out Characters as well.

Same thing happened with Morrowind and Oblivion too. The NPCs from the expansions had more depth than the NPCs from the main game.

Which is a bit unfortunate, it would be nice if the main game NPCs had more depth. Memorable NPCs never really been one of the corner stones of the TES series though.

A lot of characters have interesting stories to tell. Maybe you just need to get out there, and talk to more of them.

I'd agree. She is probably the best vanilla game follower.

Now you mention it, that is a definite trend in this series, Especially if the Shivering Isles is taken into account, they really mixed up the characters in that expansion.
Perhaps, but after seeing many threads in Dawnguard general about Serana, it definitely seems the community wants more memorable ones.

Mjoll The Lioness, Jenassa, Vignar Grey-Mane, Olfrid Battle-Born, Amren, Silver-Blood Family, Ulfric Stormcloak, Tullius, and Elisif the Fair probably has the most stories to tell.

Perhaps a new DLC could elaborate on the base Skyrim characters?

I understand your point about having more fleshed out characters, but I think where the game truly fail is that the reuse too many lines and voices. Shopkeepers all greet you in the same way, guards always seems to say the same thing, and over time, you end up feeling like none of them have personality. For example, even if Belethor really had an engaging story to tell you, he'd still be the guy who say, like every other shopkeepers "Others call this junk, me I call this treasure"

I think characters are a bit fleshed out BUt it get drowned in repetition.

I think it would be an impossibility for every single NPC from one corner of the map to the other to be so fleshed out. Sometimes Bob the Blacksmith is simply Bob the [censored]ing Blacksmith. Some people are just faces in the crowd.

agreed the person I found most interesting was Cicero add more people like him maybe two or three?

Crazy and squeaky?

He gets on my nerves actually. He's kind of like Skyrim's Jar Jar Binx.

This. Not just talk to them, but listen to what they say and be willing to extrapolate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to fill in the blanks in the marriage of Naseem and Ahlam, or to learn a little bit about Eorlund and his family besides his being a blacksmith, or Saadia, or Adrienne Avenicci, or the wood elf brothers, or Uthgerd the unbroken. There are TONS of backstories and this is only in Whiterun!

Totally, one of the only characters in Skyrim that I truly dislike, the acting was WAY too over-the-top.

I agree with the OP. Less cardboard chars. would be nice.
Off-topic: Btw OP its the Duke of Death not the Duck .

Some of these voice actors do voices in animation, and I think when directed to be "crazy" or "strange" they go over the top with it.

It took you 10 months to reach this conclusion?

Anyways, yep. That's sorta why I often facepalm when people say Skyrim is all about exploration.
Listen, exploration may be nice in your opinion, but go to the Nexus. Count how many mods add more caves to explore, then count how many add good stories and characters. Character development is hard, cave development is easy. So please Bethesda, for the love of God, focus on characters more. Caves and exploration can EASILY be improved upon later, whether through expansions or user mods, but NPCs and stories? That's not easily improved.

And sadly I must admit, I think it's too late for Skyrim to have good characters for that very reason. I've never heard of a DLC that fixes NPC interaction or story....

Makes perfect sense, because that's exactly how he stands out, a cartoon floating through reality, he actually reminds me of the "bad guy" in Phineas and Ferb, Perry's arch-nemesis, Dr. Doofenschquertz or whatever his name is... just, well, annoyingly dumb.

Well the inlymproblem is the creativity skyrim has what 1000 npcs? Someone or a team of people are going to have to come up with a backstory for 1000 people some of whom will die or never be met

Sapphire from the thieve's guild also has an amazing back story, although I agree that you don't find out much if anything about the other thieves.

Posted a discussion thread on Sapphire here: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1411663-anyone-else-want-to-marry-a-thief/

Viper's name-story, also interesting. Who a person IS tells you a lot about who they WERE.

@ YSOLDA MUST DIE:



Beth can do this if they can write a story that you can actually read in every book in Skyrim.

Well I think part of the argument is that maybe "less is more" in that sense. Or hell, even just fix the dialog they spout.

I think they should:

1) Fix greetings. People should say "Good day," not "IWORKFORBELETHORATTHEGENERALGOODSSTORE"
2) Fix how often people greet you. I don't want to hear an NPC every time they get within 5 yards of me.
3) Focus on some NPCs while abandoning others. Have Sigurd say "good day" and only spout "I WORK FOR BELETHOR" if you attempt to talk to him. Do the same for Nazeem and the strong Nord Woman and literally leave them with one line of dialog about themselves. Meanwhile, give Ysolda more personality and backstory; focus on certain NPCs.
4) Sorta off-topic, but fix head-tracking. Hella awkward to have an entire troop of Imperial Soldiers staring at me as if I'm the ugliest man alive while Rikke gives a speech in front of them


Unfortunately, Bethesda really aren't the best writers, admittedly. Someone once pointed out that typically, Bethesda character design can be summed up like this: take a singular personality trait and hyperbolize that to be the basis of the character's entire personality. For example if a character's an alcoholic, it isn't something that comes up from time to time, but rather it's the ENTIRE focus of the character. Everything they say will relate back to alcohol. This is very elementary character design that produces one-dimensional characters. This is also probably why Shivering Isles was such a success: because in the eyes of society, mental illnesses ARE hyperbolized. The mentally ill do seem dramatic to us and we DON'T often look past their mental illness. This meant that Bethesda's writing style just happened to combine with the theme perfectly.

But yeah, they got a lot to learn as far as writing goes...

I agree sapphires story was very....shall we say, interesting? I don't know if I'd like to see more people with her story

Not more of her story, more people with the depth of story she had