Had a blast on first play through, lots of different wildlife running around, running away, attacking you, attacking each other, but on second playthrough, nothing is respawning. And certain creatures are appearing only at certain trigger points but never in any ambient way in the world, in this case the Ice Wraith. I've only seen 4 total and I'm way beyond level 30 and over 100 hours of play time. Other aninmals like the saber cat are only relativly rare, frost spiders showing up in singles only.
Bears are abundant and wolves too but only in groups of two or even one and last only untill I kill them.

I can literaly go from one end of the map to the other on well travelled roads I've been on before and never be attacked by anything. Just see the occassional elk, deer, or fox. NPCs still roam the countryside but fixed encampments or grottos never respawn after clearing, for example "Robbers Gorge" or the little bandit grotto on the west side of Whiterun just a little ways north of the entrance. Havent checked out cleared dungeans tho, haven't had any reason to.

I've since tried to mod the game using Plutos spawn multiplyer to increase the number of critters that spawn only to realize that multiplying anything by zero gets zero. I've tried uninstalling completely all folders and saves, reinstalling and starting a new game but get the same result. Is this the result of the new patches? And can sombody suggest a fix for a broken world.

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System Information
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Time of this report: 2/5/2012, 17:45:09
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.110622-1506)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: X58A-UD3R
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel? Core? i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6142MB RAM
Page File: 1675MB used, 10607MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 64bit Unicode

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Display Devices
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Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 465
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_06C4&SUBSYS_14673842&REV_A3
Display Memory: 3808 MB
Dedicated Memory: 993 MB
Shared Memory: 2815 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: SyncMaster B2330H /B2330HF (Digital)
Monitor Model: SMB2330H
Monitor Id: SAM064A
Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
Output Type: DVI
Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvwgf2umx.dll,nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Driver File Version: 8.17.0012.9053 (English)
Driver Version: 8.17.12.9053
DDI Version: 11
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 12/17/2011 16:05:00, 17483072 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: n/a
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-4584-11CF-AF78-6B341DC2C535}

you should look for mod that shorten respawn time, not multuply.

Unless it multiplies by a number less than 1...

Thanks guys, i just wonder why game play is so markedly different from the first playthrough. I don't think it's my imagination or at least not completely.

It can be partly due to just bad luck, I'm not really kidding here as well.

Me and my girlfriend were both playing intensively when the game came out, after 100 hours of gameplay: I had 3x more dragon souls than she did, and i fought 3 dragons in cities AND i had a double dragon battle two times. On her second playthrough she got the first dragon in a city, well above 100 hours gaming time.

With my second character i had many more random encounters, and with my third character a lot less.
What have i noticed: It's random. I needed to spend 140 hours in the game (getting wabajjack with each character) before I ever met a disciple of Shaegorath. Mostly it boils down to dumb luck.