Have your cake and eat it too.
Essential NPC's are an annoyance.

In my 2nd game the Blacksmith and his wife in Riverwood were killed. It was only a minor annoyance to me because there are other Blacksmiths, but I've seen reports of certain NPCs being killed and ruining people's games, but I can't recall any right now. I wonder how the game would handle It's why I like the idea of essential versus NPCs, but non-essential versus PCs with a warning pop-up or, like OneironautMike mentioned knee drop.

This irritates me a bit. If a merchant dies or we kill them no one takes over their shop/business? Really? In a place like Skyrim where few are "rich" no one in a town is gonna' take over a shop or business? I know some NPCs take over for others, but this should be the case for all of the businesses even if a new person is generated - it wouldn't be difficult for the game to generate a new, non-sensical sounding name like Flergia Knot-Gut.

I have never had a dragon spawn inside Solitude...

I'm not sure the dragons are mammals.

This irritates me a bit. If a merchant dies or we kill them no one takes over their shop/business?

But again, in 2 of my 5 start to finish walkthroughs, I delay the MQ and dragon spawns until I'm satisfied with the my progress in other questlines.

That's what annoys me the most with dragons killing merchants, which leads me to...
That's exactly what I do.

...to add insult to injury, they even killed the Khajiit merchant outside of Dawnstar, all before I hit level 10...

They probably did so because of the dragons. I have had dragon attacks inside cities where a number of merchants and townspeople died.

Here's what's ridiculous here. I've been playing CRPGs since Baldur's Gate, so lemme toss in a little perspective:

To complain about the AI is futile. AI is soooo much better now that it used to be. It's like complaining about your cell phone not having enough apps to someone who grew up without a phone. Stop complaining. It is what it is, and its a helluva lot better than it used to be. Some of you sound like the person waiting at the microwave oven and complaining that it takes too long. You're taking for granted how amazing gaming technology has become.

And the "essential" argument. People complain about an NPC that dies and ruins a quest. Programmers make characters essential. Gamers then complain that their game isn't realistic enough for them. Programmers design scripts that allow for the death of important NPCs. Gamers complain that too many important NPCs are getting killed. Programmers take heed and make sure that NPCs that may be of value are coded as essential. And here we are with this kind of thread. People are gonna complain about one thing or another. There's no possible way for everyone to be happy about every aspect of game as huge and complex as this. Get over it. If you feel a need to be able to kill vereyone, play a FPS. If you want to play in an open-ended, massively immersive CRPG, you have to accept certain restrictions on killing, because not everyone is concerned about not being able to kill a bum that they decided needs to die for reasons they've invented for themselves.

Marking someone as essential is how you fix bad NPC AI, or haven't you heard?

Heck I just finished the Companion quest line again and if those quest followers were not essential I'd be the only person in The Circle. Those guys were taking a knee in every battle. Course hired followers wouldn't last long either.

The thing is, I personally never have a problem with this. I only attack people that attack me first or are quested to be killed, and I have yet to have one of those be essential. Well, the sole exception is the officers in the civil war camps when you are told to take them out whenever I find them after the war and I can't, so I just leave them alone.

Except where a quest has been removed, I'm not aware of any NPC who is essential, but not part of a quest, or offering a service. That annoying Nord in Windhelm? You can brawl with him. I assume that's why the flag. Those legates (and the stormcloak equivalent) are from the CW - but the quest line was altered and they were never unflagged (there were going to be more quests in that line). Do some of these people saying "they're not part of a quest" realise how many quests there are? Have you done every one? Really? There may be a couple of mistakes where someone was flagged, and then the flag left instead, but most really are part of a quest. In theory you could script them to lose the flag after a quest was done, but perhaps Beth had better things to do than pander to people who favour indiscriminate killing.

Then the dragon attack scripting should've been handled better. No need to be so heavy-handed and make half the game immortal. Some of us LIKE the risk of having to deal with real consequences like someone who could've been really helpful dying. Some of us like to feel the rush of a dragon attack feeling like it matters since the lives of vulnerable NPCs are at stake.

I can't think of one essential NPC that I had a burning need to kill and couldn't. Who are y'all trying to kill, that you can't, and it's ruining your game? I get to kill everyone I want, I kill thousands of people, and I could kill hundreds more if the objective of my game was to clear out the towns and settlements. Who's on the hit list here? Derkeethus? And I'll withdraw my prior post's sarcastic comment about not being able to kill a bum (cuz' I know the OP was being facetious.. well, I think he was). Some NPCs have to be essential for those players who want to pursue their quests. If that's not for you, like it or not, you have to overlook it. Think of all the crap you have to overlook every day in the real world. There's a million things you can't do a damn thing about, millions of people you may find abhorrent but can't kill. So look - the game's more realistic than you thought, eh?

On the flip side, who's getting killed (by dragons, it seems, most often) that's ruining your game? I can only think of maybe a couple of occasions where a named NPC got killed by a dragon. Hold off on the MQ if you want to have a dragon-free game for a while. That's what i do. Just don't get or turn in the dragonstone, and do all the other stuff in Skyrim.

I kinda liked the suggestion that NPCs be immortal to other NPCs but not the PC, but the problem there is this: Let's say in the event of a dragon attack, any given single person (maybe a merchant like Lami or minor quest-giver like Roggi) will survive a dragon's attack, probably fighting back until, impossibly enough, they have slain the dragon. It kind of takes the imperative off the player, you see? There's no need for a hero if any given NPC in the game is immortal and can slay the most fearsome of foes.

...it's the dragon attacks that need to be less frequent and need to be altered slightly.

THANK YOU! Don't you people see what BaratheonFury has pointed out? Can you imagine how much more a sense of urgency you would have if a dragon attacked a city full of people that....(wait for it..)...COULD DIE?! After all, it's nowhere near as suspenseful knowing who will die and who won't. To BaratheonFury's other point, it's not the "stupid AI", it's the dragon attacks that need to be less frequent and need to be altered slightly. BTW all, I've seen much worse AI in my time as a gamer. Yes, it's not perfect, but what is? Stop blaming it on the AI and start blaming the way that the dragons were choreographed to attack.

If dragons didn't attack villages, why would it matter if the NPC's were essential or not... ? And if there was no danger of a dragon attack, there would be no menace involved and the entire Main Quest line would be pointless.

If dragons didn't attack villages, why would it matter if the NPC's were essential or not... ? And if there was no danger of a dragon attack, there would be no menace involved and the entire Main Quest line would be pointless.

You know, complaining about complaining is also, in fact, complaining. BTW, the bum was just an example of NPCs that shouldn't have even been considered being marked as essential.

And I'll withdraw my prior post's sarcastic comment about not being able to kill a bum (cuz' I know the OP was being facetious.. well, I think he was).