Ah, Skyrim, it’s been on my review todo list for a while. But looking at this game critically is very hard; I mean, they pumped out one darn fine game so anything I can come up with will be little nit picks.
So unless you just aren’t into the first person rpg genre, this is Skyrim, part of the Elder Scrolls series (not to be confused with Scrolls, the game by the Minecraft guy, I’m sure nobody confuses them, but you know…). My first introduction into the series was Oblivion, which was just wonderful… though it had its moments… I think, however, they fixed most of the issues with Oblivion with this edition; being the stupid stupid AI pathing that would usually end up with you tossing out a fireball in the direction of your buddy as he rushed into battle… resulting in them either dieing or turning on you. The other was the extreme bottom of the valley uncanny stares you’d get when speaking with NPCs. Man, still have nightmares about that…
But with the venture to the frozen north in, what I’m assuming is the Canada of the Elder Scrolls world, AI is much better and they don’t look directly into your soul as much as before. I still can’t stand that everytime I walk somewhere, EVERYBODY looks at me. And it’s not like some sort of antisocial thing either, it’s just that… everybody looks at you. I guess my Redguard in dragon skin armor could warrant a few stares, but that’s not even the worst of it. They, well… they don’t turn to face you. What I mean is, they will turn their heads like a demon possessed owl in what can only be described as completely unnatural for anything other than a jellyfish. Just one of those things that kind of kills the immersion when you get that Children Of The Corn feeling in the back of your neck every time you enter an inn.
Then, of course, is the distinct lack of population. I know programming is hard and filling up the world with useless characters takes away from other works, but when you sum up the total number of NPCs that are not randomly spawned, like bandits, then you get the feeling that there may be only about 100-200 some odd people in this entire area. And let me tell you, the area of Skyrim is HUGE, so it feels very desolate. Sure, you can argue that it’s a wintery wonderland, but when you hit a big city like Whiterun, and there’s only about a dozen homes, it kind of kills it. I swear Oblivion had more filler homes/people, but I might be remembering that wrong. Still, I’d be happier if it was filled a bit more. Oh and… more marriage choices! What’s the harm in making any non married person an eligible choice?
Ah well… but you know what, there’s not a whole lot more you can say about it. Sure, it had a rough PC launch with more bugs than a knock off Snes game*, some U.V. issues, and there could be more work done on the little details like population and more flavor items, BUT this really is THE game to get! It’s awesome and you’re missing out if you don’t have it! So there! XD
Skyrim, the only place where the so called “busiest” is Whitrun and places like Solitude go unnoticed. (my view.)
I liked the way Whiterun was layed out cause the fast travel was pretty much right at your doorstep… and I’ve got a warrant out for me in Solitude! shoot just one guard by accident while taking down a dragon and all of a sudden I’M the bad guy!?
I think they refer to it as busy because of its central location, so then likely has tons of visitors in theory. Or maybe they decided on the old European route, pre-industrial era, where there were less people, and they were WAY spread out.
visitors? you mean those Redguard they wont let in? lol! hmm… you know, they should have random “visitor” spawns, like how they do with bandits, so it seems more bustling than it really is! heck, you wouldn’t even need to make the city look bigger, just fill it with random folks to walk around!
At first I was meh, no immersion, what the heck? Then I was like ‘ok, dual cast of sparks like a sithlord is kinda neat’, and after some time ‘hey, there are some NPCs I grew accustomed to! Yay!
To whoever shunned the game cuz of first impression, give it another go, there’s a lot more than meets the eye at first, I really mean it
it took like so many game hours before I figured out you can hold both buttons down and have a super charged fireball/spark/frosty!!! very sad…
actually, I loved it from the get go… but then again, I played Oblivion so I kinda knew what to expect. and to anyone who thinks it’s a short game… NEVER EVER play the main quests first! XD
On the subject of Marriage:
Single Khajiiti Female seeks mate for snuggles on hearthrug. Long fluffy tail a must.
There are exactly ZERO marriageable Khajiiti NPCs, of either gender.
seriously! you can marry a lizard lady before a cat lady? what’s up with that?!
then again, I think there’s a console code to make anyone eligible (with a few bugs) so there’s always that, right?
And here I wondered why they have enything but shops and targets to kill/loot
to many useless NPCs for me
Different styles I guess
probably depends on the city, but Whiterun pretty much had only important npcs. but Oblivion felt like it was chock full of “extras”… could just be my imagination, but that’s how it felt.
ya there isnt much population, but there are a lot of neat mods for the PC version that can add more NPCs and towns and ect
hmm, havent tried out the modding stuff yet… still haven’t even done the main quest, lol!
I always found Oblivion oddly empty, especially the capital, just because its supposed to be the biggest city and there seems to be hardly anyone on the streets. I could have taken it if there were lots of people in the buildings (as after all there are lots of assassins and daedra running around) but there are no people. To me Skyrim is a lot better but it still has the odd fact that there seems to be a disproportionate number of soldiers, bandits, assassins and so on compared to the normal population, still I suppose that is an acceptable break from reality.
A friend of mine insists that basically the reason why there arn’t that many non-plot npcs is because you as a character ignore the people who arn’t important……..
true true… maybe it seemed a little less empty to me cause it was a bit bigger than say, whiterun, but still… both have very sparse populations. seems to work nice in fallout3, but in elderscrolls I think they really need to beef up the locations.
heck, they said the landmass areas in the elder scrolls online games were going to be shrunken! which is amazing to me how they could get smaller!
lol, I like your friend’s theory! like you don’t even see them on the screen… that’s how unimportant they are! XD