Hi there everyone, first of all to the makers of the game congatulaions on the best rpg of all time. Im very new to posting on forums so forgive me for being a noob or whatever. There is a topic I wish to discuss. Also please forgive me if there is already a discusion about this.

Why is the population so small. One the most appealing aspects of medieval fantasy is war. Who cares if the stormcloaks take on the legion, it would be a very small fight, like 50 vs 50 or something. How can you call Whiterun a city its more like a tiny village. Where are the tailors the bakers the masons and all the other people it takes to run a civilized society. For me immersion relies heavilly on a believable environment. I know dragons and magic is hardly believable but I think that aspect has to be balanced out with a somewhat realistic environment.

I have been playing rpgs since megadrive days, and I also read epic fantasy novels. I think bethedsa is miles ahead of any competion with rpg gaming at the moment. They seem to evolving the genre, adding all the things I have ever dreamed of in a rpg. This is the ony pitfall for me. I would love to hear what other gamers think and bethedsa themselves (if thats possible?). And please dont waste my time on petty argumentive crap, I only wish to have an objective discussion on what I believe is an important aspect of rpg gaming.

Because consoles dont have the ability to run that.

Bethesda would put more people in these games if they thought the consoles could handle it. I'm sure there will be a mod of new city that is packed.

The taverns supply the mead.

The smiths forge the weapons.

The keeps provide protection.

As a nord, what else could you possibly want or need?

First off, you're new... so have a Fishy Stick -> http://www.uesp.net/wiki/General:Fishy_Stick

Secondly, the population count is low because of load times. In fact, the reason why the armor pieces were combined (ie: curiass and greaves) was because the developers wanted to get more NPC actors on the screen by limiting the data stream.... so they said anyways.

Mid to high-end PC's have the horsepower to handle more actors on the screen, but the current technology within today's consoles probably wouldn't. That's the compromise we have to live with since this game was made for consoles and ported over to the PC.

I understand where you're coming from, OP, but the fact is that a truly huge population would bog most computers down. It's been that way for quite a while with RPGs, even going back to really old ones like Ultima. My only contact with Ultima was a little time spent playing Ultima 5 and Ultima 6, but there's only gonna be so many NPCs in a single given cell.

And if you're talking about a mass battle between two armies of a couple hundred soldiers each, that's gonna be HORRIBLY taxing on any system. The character models in Skyrim look fairly high-polygon to me, and the more polygons you have in a given model, the more calculations it takes to render them real-time, multiplied by the number of those models being rendered at any one time. This is why models have multiple Levels Of Detail, or LODs. The more complex LOD model is used when it's close to the viewer, and has a higher-polygon model and higher-resolution textures; less complex LOD models are used when the thing in question is far away, and the resulting lack of detail won't be noticed at that distance; lower-complexity LOD models have fewer polygons and lower-res textures, and so render more quickly than their more complex equivalents.

The highlighted part doesn't sound right to me. How does combining them into one model improve load times? I don't know that a single model with 500 polygons would load any faster than a pair of models with 250 polygons each, and the same should hold true for the texture maps. Maybe there's something I'm missing, though; I'm not a 3d modeler.

Sadly, I don't have the answer to your question.

From what I read and understood, that was Bethesda's reasoning. Combine that with the fact that they wanted to eliminate clipping issues with clothing and/or armor.

All very well, I already gathered as much. Too much load times console cant handle it (sorry I should have said that in first post) There is however ways around that. like having a massive city but only accessing some parts of it. lets hear of some other ways. And who else thinks it would be better with proper cities, legions, infantry, cavalry, sick war cutscenes and so on.

Actually, you can show less of the armor, by having the full set, over partial sets.

Aka, some types of armor, you only see 'part' of the greaves, and 'part' of the chest piece, as the pauldrons cover part of the chest piece, and the chest covers part of the greaves, same for the gauntlets tot he chest piece, ect.

if you have every individual part, you have to show 'more' of what you wouldn't see in the set when its complete, than a completed set.

However that said, when I actually looked at some of these armors?
Dragon Bone being an example...
Uggh what a mess!!!

Anyone want to actually discuss the topic

I think the larger cities in Skyrim are just about right. But I agree they could use a few more houses and people. I also like having smaller villages too though, it seems realistic and the variety in Skyrim is some of the best on any RPG ever. However I will say this... In Oblivion the Imperial city was so large and had so many people it was actually a little too much in my opinion and was a bit overwhelming, especially at first. I think they do a pretty good job when it comes to populating the world of Nirn though.

I actually prefer small towns in RPGs but with more character development. Like about as big as Riverwood but with a couple more houses and at least 10 more residents, and I wish that more people changed, grew, had more cinematic sequences where something happens like they go hunting or get into a fight with someone or go swimming or watch the sunset with a lover on a bridge or have parties or play pranks on people or hate someone at first and then something happens and ends up liking them or steals from someone or spies on you until they finally trust you enough to talk or started a fight club or had a parent die and turned into an angry thief and so on and so forth, you know... evolving character development. Like they had more than 2 quests each and a lot more dialog. And as far as dialog goes I wish that when you talked to people about certain topics they all had at least 4 different things to say about it (10-15 preferably), and when you asked them about it they would randomly say one of the 15 things they can say about it, until all things have been said, then all the responses turn back on and randomly start saying them all again until everything has been said again in a different order and so on. It would make everything feel much more alive and wouldn't be that hard to do. It just takes time.

This whole game was rushed for how big I think it was meant to be. I think they often try to pack too much stuff into their games and it leaves a lot of stuff unfinished or lacking in content or just very simplified and a bit lifeless. But that is my two cents... Don't get me started on A.I or radiant quests. I will just say the A.I is pretty ridiculous in so many places in this game, like fighting, followers, hunting animals, and dragon attacks all have a lot of A.I. scripting (or usually lack of scripting) that really gets on my nerves and seems a little careless and unrealistic. I also don't like the radiant quests as they are way too simple and boring, I would prefer well thought out scripted organically crafted original quests where they can be more complex. I said don't get me started, and yet I started lol...

I know I went off track a bit but I'm curious about anyone elses thoughts on these ideas. I remember a mod for Morrowind that made it so all the characters of the place the modder made had 20-50 different things that they randomly said like I was talking about before, and I loved it, well at least I liked that part of the mod heheh.. It made the NPCs seem like real living people and you were just dying to know what they were gonna say next and it gave them a sense of having evolving thoughts or actively thinking right there in front of you. I also think Bethesda should have hired more voice actors, and for the ones that did sooooo many different NPC's voices, I really wish they tried to make themselves sound more different from person to person. It's better in Skyrim than Oblivion for sure but still, even I can sound like at least 40 different people if I put my mind to it. You get 40 voice actors that can all sound like 40 different people and that's 1600 different NPCs right there. Double that number and let them do the same voice for two similar NPCs and that's 3200 NPCs that sound very different from one another, or at least it would give the illusion to your ears that it's much more than just a handful of voice actors (can you give an illusion to ears?), and you have yourself a hugely populated game world and only paying 40 people to read lines. Believe me they can afford it. At least we have more than the I think it was 13 voice actors that did ALL of the NPCs in Oblivion. Plus one for Sir Patrick Stewart of course!

Wow, great post Daddi gemini I enjoyed reading that. I definately agree about the voices. Also I think maybe they do try to pack to much in. I would definately settle for less but with more quality. Some good Ideas there. I really wish that you could see where you were going when you hire the carrige to take you from town to town......evolving character development... I often feel this is lacking something, lacking real heart, with close to all modern games. I think your on to something there.

Its interesting to me that you find the town sizes adequate can you elaborate on that?. For me the best fantasy stories involve powerfull races, war, geat battles, sorcery and so on.

I wasn't bothered by city size as cities like the imperial city don't fit in with the barbarian themed nordic land

Because its a representation. And hardware limitations on the consoles.

Seems pretty obvious to me. Technical limitations prevent populating the game world with tons and tons of NPCs, most of whom would likely be generic like those "Farmer" guys. Yeah mods will come out that add a few more down the line but it won't be anything drastic.

I don't have a problem with the population per say, but I do have a problem with creating 16 square miles of real estate and calling it a nation.

They could have made one huge city that was from TES lore in a province, then made other small cities around it within the 16 square miles and make a game out of it.

Instead, the 16 square miles is shaped like the entire nation, and 10 small cities with tiny populations are the majestic cities of these provinces from lore?

When you play Daggerfall, a single small town has a larger population than the entirety of Oblivion, Morrowind, or Skyrim. It literally takes you weeks to ride across the entire landscape on horseback.

I'm not asking for that level of scale at all, but I'm asking for believability. Provide me with 16 square miles of a province and call it a 16 square mile section of a province. Instead of creating 16 square miles of low populated land and calling it a nation...

The immersion would work better for me. The game is fun, but at no time do any of the previous three games feel like you're in a nation-sized or populated realm.

would have been cool if some of the smaller villages like roriksted were at least as half as big as dawnstar.

Because having more NPCs wouldn't strain computers as well? Adding a wider number of NPCs isn't something you can toggle, especially if they're essential to the story, or for quests.

thats exactly how i feel about it

Now this I can agree with.

I was a bit underwhelmed when it came to size of some of the villages. In fact, I still believe that the lore behind the destruction of Winterhold was an excuse on Bethesda's part to cut development time. I'll accept it for what it is though.

Main reason why ES games will never be as good as Morrowind or predecesors, as long they keep making it for consoles rather then PC. It should be the other way around. Curse consoles

this is besides the point. it is obvious to everyone. but what we are talking about is how the small populaion pertains to believability. And what Im hoping for is suggestions for ways around it. Like bigger cities with out being able to access all parts, which makes a whole host of things possible. A great battle perhaps

What makes you think Morrowind was any better in this regard? 12 square miles of island and I'm supposed to believe that is more than half of the entire nation of Vvardenfell? How many people really live in Morrowind's capital city?

Daggerfall was the only game that provided a believable nation-sized landmass. If you provide me with 16 square miles, that 16 square miles should not be in the shape of your entire nation's landmass.

Oblivion should have been the Imperial City (bigger) with more small towns around it which each small town should have been the size of a Bravil or a Chorral, but not named those cities (since they should be way far away from the Imperial City based on lore and basic geography)

I hold a similar view on Winterhold.

Regarding towns and villages, I wish they were at least two to three times bigger. As it is, there's little point in visiting most of them, other than a quest or two. I can't help but think that every town should have had at least one blacksmith, a general merchant and an inn. Every town needs a blacksmith. They need someone locally to repair tools and shoe horses. A general merchant would give us places to stop and sell our loot without going all the back to the cities. And the inns would give us a place to spend the night.

Sad thing is, adding those three things would double the size of some towns.