How Skyrim's NPCs Organize the Open World Experience
Summary
TLDRThis video script explores the strategic use of NPC dialogue in 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim', contrasting it with traditional Japanese RPGs. The speaker delves into the challenges of analyzing NPC speech in Skyrim's expansive world and discusses the game's unique methods for guiding players, such as event-based clustering and diffuse funneling. The script also highlights the artfulness of NPC interactions, which serve both practical and storytelling purposes, contributing to the game's immersive world-building.
Takeaways
- 📚 The video discusses the use of NPC dialogue in 'Skyrim', contrasting it with traditional Japanese RPGs.
- 🔍 The speaker's method involves collecting dialogue from every NPC in a game, which is more challenging in 'Skyrim' due to the vast number of NPCs and their varying dialogue based on game progression.
- 🌐 The script highlights the importance of NPC dialogue in providing an organizational framework for players in an open-world game, helping to alleviate choice paralysis.
- 🏙️ The analysis focuses on the initial state of 'Skyrim', with dialogue collected from major cities to represent a significant sample of the game's NPCs.
- 🗣️ Dialogue is categorized based on topics and purposes, with 'zone dialogue' being common and repeated across NPCs within the same geographic area.
- 🎭 The video identifies 'event-based clustering' and 'diffuse funneling' as two strategies used in 'Skyrim' to guide players through the game world and its narrative.
- 🤝 'Event-based clustering' brings NPCs together for story events, introducing players to important characters and future quest lines.
- 🔄 'Diffuse funneling' spreads NPCs across the world to guide players towards specific locations or factions, such as the Bard's College or the College of Winterhold.
- 🎨 The script appreciates the artistry in NPC dialogue that contributes to world-building and storytelling, beyond just serving gameplay mechanics.
- 👥 The video mentions the large team involved in creating the NPCs of 'Skyrim', emphasizing the significance of NPCs in the game's design and storytelling.
- 👻 The script concludes by acknowledging the strengths of 'Skyrim' in NPC design, despite the game's other criticisms and imperfections.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video on NPC dialogue in Skyrim?
-The main focus of the video is to analyze the use of NPC dialogue in Skyrim, particularly in the context of its open-world, non-linear RPG structure, and how it differs from linear Japanese RPGs.
Why is it more difficult to collect all NPC dialogue in Skyrim compared to older RPGs?
-It is more difficult due to the vast number of NPCs, some of whom are hard to find, appear only at certain times or places, or only interact with the player after specific quests are completed. Additionally, dialogue can vary based on the player's progress and attributes.
What method did the author use to study NPC dialogue in Skyrim?
-The author started a fresh game as a level 1 character with average stats and skills, avoiding specialization in speech, and collected dialogue data from major cities in Skyrim, focusing on the initial state of the world.
What is 'zone dialogue' and why is it significant in Skyrim?
-Zone dialogue refers to repeated phrases that are specific to a geographic zone rather than the individual NPC. It is significant because it is common and helps new players find important amenities in the city, but it is counted only once per topic to avoid skewing the analysis.
How do open-world RPGs use NPCs to address the 'open world problem' and the 'RPG problem'?
-Open-world RPGs use NPCs to provide an organizational framework, guiding players to quests, shops, dungeons, loot, and resources. This helps prevent choice paralysis and ensures players can find content appropriate for their level.
What are the two main strategies Skyrim uses for transmitting information through NPCs?
-The two main strategies are event-based clustering and diffuse funneling. Event-based clustering gathers NPCs for story events, introducing important characters, while diffuse funneling spreads NPCs across the world to guide the player towards specific locations or factions.
Can you explain the concept of 'event-based clustering' in Skyrim?
-Event-based clustering refers to instances where multiple NPCs come together for a story event, such as Rogbir's execution in Solitude. This strategy allows the player to meet important characters all at once and helps structure their gameplay.
What is 'diffuse funneling' and how does it work in Skyrim?
-Diffuse funneling is a strategy where NPCs spread across the world guide the player towards a single point, such as the Bard's College or the College of Winterhold. This helps direct the player and connect them to quest chains and factions.
How do 'talky quests' in Skyrim contribute to the player's experience?
-Talky quests are simple errands that put the player in front of quest chains or networks of important NPCs. They are designed to be easily discoverable and help the player navigate the game world while providing quest rewards.
What is the purpose of 'Dunsel NPCs' in Skyrim and how do they differ from other NPCs?
-Dunsel NPCs are characters designed to make the world seem real through their dialogue, but they do not offer interactive menus for quests or transactions. They serve a decorative purpose, adding depth to the game's storytelling and world-building.
How does Skyrim's use of NPC dialogue demonstrate the game's strengths in world-building and storytelling?
-Skyrim's use of NPC dialogue shows its strengths by creating a persuasive world with elaborate networks of NPCs that accomplish various game design goals. The dialogue ranges from guiding the player through the world to adding depth and color to the game's narrative.
Outlines
📚 Exploring NPC Dialogue in Skyrim: Methodology and Challenges
The script introduces a video series examining the use of non-player character (NPC) dialogue in the open-world RPG game Skyrim, contrasting it with linear Japanese RPGs. The author outlines their methodology, which involves collecting dialogue from every NPC in a representative state of the game world. This approach is necessitated by the vast number of NPCs, their varying locations and times of appearance, and the dynamic nature of their dialogue based on the player's progress and attributes. The summary emphasizes the impracticality of collecting all dialogue but argues that studying NPCs in a single state can reveal important trends.
🕵️♂️ The Role of NPCs in Structuring Open World RPGs
This paragraph delves into the challenges faced by players in open world RPGs, such as choice paralysis and the difficulty of finding content appropriate for their character's level. It explains how NPCs in Skyrim serve to provide an organizational framework, guiding players to quests, shops, dungeons, and other points of interest. The video discusses two main strategies used by Skyrim's NPCs for conveying information: event-based clustering, where NPCs gather for story events, and diffuse funneling, where NPCs spread across the world guide the player towards specific locations or factions. These strategies help to mitigate the open world and RPG problems by providing structure and guidance to players.
🎭 Artistry in NPC Design: Plausibility and World-Building
The script highlights the artfulness of NPC design in Skyrim, focusing on how NPCs are used to create a persuasive world and advance the game's narrative. It contrasts the clumsy use of NPCs for directing players to the College of Winterhold with more plausible encounters that integrate seamlessly into the game world. The summary discusses 'talky quests' that lead players to new NPCs and quest chains in a natural way, as well as the use of NPCs to make the world feel alive through interactions like playing tag with children or witnessing unique events like the one in Riften.
🏰 Skyrim's Persuasive World and the Function of Dunsel NPCs
This paragraph explores the concept of 'dunsel' NPCs in Skyrim—characters who exist solely to make the game world feel real and lived-in, without offering interactive dialogue options. The summary explains how these NPCs contribute to the game's storytelling and world-building, providing a level of immersion that differs from previous Elder Scrolls games. It also discusses the importance of these characters in creating a persuasive setting, even if they do not offer practical rewards or advance the player's stats.
🎨 Artistic Expression Through NPCs: Unique Interactions and Storytelling
The final paragraph celebrates the unique artistic contributions of NPCs in Skyrim, showcasing how they can convey complex narratives and emotions in ways that other media cannot. The summary highlights specific examples, such as the eerie normalcy of Hroger in Morthal following a tragic event, and how the freedom of the player to interact with the world around them enhances the storytelling experience. It concludes by acknowledging the extensive effort and resources dedicated to creating the NPCs in Skyrim, emphasizing their importance to the game's design and immersion.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡NPC Dialogue
💡Open World RPG
💡Event-Based Clustering
💡Diffuse Funneling
💡Zone Dialogue
💡Quest Chains
💡Choice Paralysis
💡Level Up System
💡Plausibility
💡Dunsel NPCs
💡Idiosyncratic Storytelling
Highlights
The video explores the use of NPC dialogue in Skyrim, contrasting it with linear Japanese RPGs.
Skyrim's open world and non-linear nature present unique challenges for NPC dialogue collection compared to older RPGs.
The vast number of NPCs in Skyrim and their varying dialogue based on player actions make comprehensive data collection impractical.
The study focuses on the initial state of Skyrim for NPC dialogue analysis to represent the game's world effectively.
The player's race and attributes influence the type of dialogue received from NPCs, affecting the study's approach.
Dialogue is categorized by topics and zones to analyze the trends in NPC interactions.
Zone dialogue is common and repetitive across NPCs, suggesting a shared information system rather than individual events.
Open world RPGs face the challenge of 'choice paralysis' for new players, which NPC dialogue helps mitigate.
NPCs in Skyrim provide an organizational framework guiding players to quests, shops, and other important locations.
Event-based clustering and diffuse funneling are two strategies used in Skyrim for NPC dialogue to guide players.
In-game events like Rogbir's execution serve as clustering points, introducing players to key NPCs and quests.
Informal clustering at inns offers recurring opportunities for players to engage with multiple NPCs and quests.
Diffuse funneling uses scattered NPCs to direct players towards specific locations or factions.
Skyrim's NPCs are designed with both practical gameplay functions and storytelling in mind.
The game employs 'talky' quests to naturally introduce players to quest chains and important NPCs.
Dunsel NPCs contribute to world-building without offering interactive dialogue options.
Skyrim's artistry in NPC design allows for unique interactions and storytelling not possible in other mediums.
The game's development involved a large team of writers, dialogue editors, and audio professionals to create its NPCs.
Despite criticism, Skyrim's NPC systems are a strength, showcasing elaborate and clever design for organizing the open world.
Transcripts
this is bonus video number two on the
use of npc dialogue in skyrim for the
main video on npc irony i spent most of
my time on linear japanese rpgs because
they're my specialty for this video i
wanted to step out of my comfort zone a
little bit and look at an open world
non-linear rpg
we're going to start with a look at my
methods as i think they help to explain
my goal in this video and the most
important differences between a game
like skyrim and the squaresoft classics
normally when i look at statistical
trends in npc speech in a game i talk to
every npc and get every piece of
dialogue they have for a snes or ps1 era
rpg that's a practical possibility in
skyrim it's significantly more difficult
the first reason for that difficulty is
that there are vastly more npcs in
skyrim than in any of the golden age
squaresoft games some of those npcs can
also be difficult to find a few move
through a large geographical area some
of those only appear in certain places
at certain times
and there is also a large number of npcs
that only appear or only talk to you
after certain quests or quest chains
have been completed to add to that the
dialogue of any given npc might vary
greatly across the course of the game as
the player completes quests and gains
attributes like a higher speech skill or
various faction alliances
this makes it so that retrieving all the
npc dialogue for the whole game is not
the most practical task but i feel that
we can still learn most of the important
things we need to know about skyrim's
npcs by studying them in a single
representative state thus this video is
based on the initial state of the world
of skyrim to collect nbc dialogue i
began a fresh game as a level 1
character with average stats and average
skills
i deliberately avoided specializing in
speech and picked the imperial race
option to minimize the number of adverse
reactions i would get from npcs the
imperial faction is mostly neutral with
other races but some storm cloak npcs
started with a lower disposition towards
my character than normal
for the most part the type of dialogue i
received was not much affected by my
character build
i collected the dialogue data only from
the major cities of skyrim whiterun
faulk wreath solitude
windhelm
dawnstar northall
riften
winterhold
and mark harth this i felt gave me a
large enough sample size to extrapolate
the important trends to nvcs all over
skyrim
although there are some moderately sized
towns with significant npc populations
there are fewer towns than there are
cities and the cities have far more
people in them maybe not winterhold but
that depends on how you count the npcs
in the mages college
within cities i itemized dialogue
according to new topics when approaching
an npc in a snes era squaresoft game the
player usually has no control over what
the topic of conversation will be in a
few cases that's true of skyrim as well
but most of the time the player has
several topics to pick from when talking
to a skyrim npc
i counted each of these as a separate
bit of npc dialogue except when multiple
options had the same endpoint not every
speech option is a separate topic
sometimes the player reaches a branching
point within a topic but every answer to
the given branches is on the same topic
and elicits the same npc reaction
but many npcs have multiple dialogue
options that fall into different
categories
for example many city dwellers have some
kind of local direction dialogue which
helps new arrivals to the city find its
important amenities
plenty
i'd say we're prosperous enough most
folk don't go hungry if they're willing
to work hard the city's ruled by the
yarl up in dragon's reach that's the
fortress there up on the tall hill
but you're probably more interested in
your vascular mead hall of the
companions
i call these repeated phrases zone
dialogue as it is particular to a
geographic zone rather than to the voice
of the npc that speaks it indeed zone
dialogue is so common that if i were to
record each instance as a direction
dialog a graph of them would be
overwhelmingly skewed towards the
direction category
and to some degree that would be an
accurate representation of the game but
the fact that zone dialogue is exactly
the same from person to person means
that these direction dialogues aren't
really separate events
rather we can think of them as a kind of
blanket direction spread out over a zone
like a city or even in some cases the
whole of skyrim
therefore most of the data you will see
in graphs is from the city dwelling npcs
of skyrim unique to one or two
characters
only counted once per topic or purpose
rather than once per dialogue branch
but at the same time i'm not only
interested in quantitative data as we'll
see skyrim trends overwhelmingly towards
elaboration about place and directions
to complete a quest that could seem a
little boring it gets interesting when
we look at how those things happen and
why
open world rpgs present two major
problems to players entering them
problems which the designer must
anticipate
the problems are right there in the name
of the genre the first is the open world
problem and the second is the rpg
problem
in a genre where a player can go
virtually anywhere at any time
brand new players are met with too many
choices
this can cause what game designers call
choice paralysis or analysis paralysis
not everyone experiences this some genre
veterans are extremely self-directed but
for the majority of players a little bit
of optional structure helps them to
enjoy the freedom of the open world the
second primary problem is the rpg
problem
as i have said many times in my research
the design feature that separated the
rpg from its war game ancestors is the
level up in any game with a progressive
level up system the player needs to be
able to go to new places and do new
things that were impossible for lower
level characters
but in an open world context this can
create organizational problems as
players can wander into content which is
inappropriate for their current level
that kind of danger is essential for
both the open world and rpg aspects of
the game but new players can be
frustrated if they don't know how or
where to find content that is
appropriate for their characters level
this is where skyrim's npcs come in the
primary function of npc's in an open
world game is to provide an
organizational framework to tell the
player where things like quests quest
givers shops dungeons loot and even
alchemy ingredients are located most
open world rpgs use their npcs this way
but some do it more artfully than others
skyrim uses two main strategies for
transmitting information through the
npcs that inhabit its cities and some of
its villages the first is event-based
clustering and the second is diffuse
funneling
event-based clustering is the easier one
to visualize because it basically means
that a bunch of npcs come together for a
story event
the best example is rogbir's execution
in solitude half the city is present at
the front gate when the player character
enters after the event which only takes
about a minute or so those npcs all
depart on foot at a relatively slow
speed giving the player a chance to
follow and or talk to them
but the event itself is also an
important bit of npc dialogue in this
event we learned that
imperial power is still ascendant in
solitude we also learned that the
imperials were totally surprised by the
assassination of the high king and other
important political details
similar though smaller events happen in
other cities almost always right as the
player is entering the town for the
first time
in morthal a group of citizens addresses
their ruler over some unresolved
grievances
in mark hearth a bunch of guards and
city folk gather in the marketplace
after the assassination of an important
citizen the purpose of these events is
to introduce the player to some of the
important people in the city all at once
making several future quest lines more
accessible
then later on if the player goes in
search of those npcs after they've
returned to their shops the player will
probably encounter several other nvcs
who have their own quest chains in the
end event-based clustering forms a
network of connections which the player
can follow to help structure their
playthrough of the game
while solitude mark carth and morthal
have the bigger cluster events most
cities have some version of this kind of
event on the streets of whiterun there
are a couple of loud npc discussions
which reveal the conflicts between the
grey mains and the battleborns and the
economic situation in the city the url
of solitude gives an audience which also
acts as a smaller clustering event the
earl of dawnstar does the same thing
although in a more hostile way
similarly a couple of thugs on the
streets of windhelm across the dark elf
resident of the city to illustrate the
racial tensions inflamed by stormcloak
political rhetoric because it's not our
fight hey maybe the reason these grey
skins don't help in the war is because
they're imperial spies
imperial spies you can't be serious
each of these events only brings
together a few npcs but the effect is
still similar
in every city there is also what i call
informal clustering events that happen
at certain gathering places mostly the
city in at night npcs gather at the city
inn ostensibly for socialization or
entertainment before they go to sleep
but of course we as players see through
that irony and understand that the
people at the end are there for us
most experienced rpg players know that
innkeepers offer a lot of minor quests
but because numerous npcs gather at the
end they also bring with them any quests
that they might have offered out in
their various places of employment the
inn doesn't usually offer the same
bonanza of quests that a clustering
event does the number of npcs is smaller
and the cast of npcs can vary based on
the day time of day or many other player
triggered changes in the world but the
nice thing about the informal clustering
event of the inn is that it recurs and
players will pick up on that fact
[Music]
the mirror of the event clustering
strategy is the diffuse funnel strategy
in this strategy a group of npcs is
spread out all across the world and they
funnel the player towards a single point
the best examples of this are the many
npcs who direct the player towards the
bards college or the college of
winterhold boards in the cities of
skyrim recommend going to solitude to
join the college
i'm a bard trained at the bards college
in solitude
wanderers like you should think about
applying
essentially these references form a
giant funnel moving the player towards
solitude should the player then join the
bards college they'll be connected to
all the npcs of that faction and given a
quest chain which sends them back out
into the world
a similar thing happens with references
to the college of winterhold because
there are no mage guilds in the cities
as there were in oblivion it's a little
more difficult to find information about
where to learn new magic
court wizards from whom the player buys
most of his or her magic at the
beginning of the game do make reference
to the college
but the chances of meeting a court
wizard other than fahrengar in whiterun
during the main quest are much lower
than those of meeting an innkeeper
relatively few quests direct you to talk
to a wizard it's far more likely that
the innkeeper will mention the college
instead this particular set of
directions doesn't make a ton of sense
from a storytelling perspective but its
practical functions are unaffected
various other funnels exist in the world
too pushing the player towards joining
one side of the civil war or the other
or the companions faction the companions
[Music]
these are a little more sparse than the
bards college or mages college but still
present in a few different places
even the dark brotherhood has a kind of
funnel although it is steeped in
idiosyncratic irony
innkeepers and other npcs will remark
that a child in windhelm is trying to
summon the dark brotherhood nobody seems
to believe that the child could actually
succeed but the whole conversation is
just a bit of irony for the player's
benefit although the npcs aren't sure if
the dark brotherhood is real or
concerned with the wishes of an orphan
the player will nevertheless understand
that this is an important illusion about
how to join that faction
is doing the black sacrament trying to
summon the dark brotherhood
oh grim bar always with a nonsense
because the designers of skyrim
accomplished so much through their npcs
there's a lot more to say about them
beyond the big structural ideas and
statistical analyses
much of their artfulness comes down to
how the npcs accomplish their various
ironic and narrative goals
to start i just want to consider the
topic of plausibility earlier i
mentioned that the primary funnel to the
college of winterhold is through court
wizards and innkeepers the notion that
court wizards would direct amateur mages
towards their alma mater makes total
sense the fact that innkeepers also send
the player in that direction with equal
consistency is a little stranger there
are obvious structural reasons why
innkeepers should say these things
players expect to gather practical
information from inns winterhold's
remote location presents a practical
problem thus we have a slightly artless
solution that functions well enough i
point this out only because it's a
relatively rare example of skyrim using
npcs in a clumsy way the rest of the
time the designers create more plausible
encounters one of my favorites is this
passing encounter in solitude
if you ever want to replace those old
rags stop by radiant raiment
until next time
tori the proprietor of the clothing shop
mocks the player character's choice of
garment but backpedals if the player
stops to talk with her this quest is a
great example of several clever
techniques that the designers are using
all the same time first tarry catches
the player's attention with an
unsolicited quip
then she backpedals on her insult and
offers the player a quest
that quest puts the player character in
front of the yarl who is in the middle
of an audience this is an example of a
small quest which pushes the player
towards a clustering event all of the
interactions that put the player on this
path are totally plausible that's an
example of good fiction
but this interaction is also elegant
from a mechanical perspective the quest
that puts the player in front of the url
requires no combat no speech checks and
no required items except the clothes
that the quest giver hands you at the
start
[Music]
because of all this the player can
easily discover a whole network of npcs
and quests in a totally natural way
skyrim is full of these little go talk
to x or talky quests as i call them that
put the player at the doorstep of a
quest chain or a network of important
npcs
several of the major cities have them
there are three such quests in riften
white run and solitude two such quests
and falk wreath and one each in windhelm
dawnstar and winterhold
there's a whopping four talky quests in
markarth that last point is the one that
showed me how and why these talky quests
were placed
mark hearth is the largest and most
complex city which is why there are so
many exploration based quests there
in order to help the player understand
how to navigate the city the player is
sent to do various simple errands
the errands are in a sense inappropriate
for the legendary dragonborn but they're
an excellent way to show the player
around the city while providing some
simple quest rewards along the way
skyrim does amazingly well at
accomplishing multiple practical design
goals with its npcs but much of what
npcs do is solely for the sake of
storytelling or world building the
central design pillar of skyrim is the
creation of a persuasive world but the
kind of artistry employed in npc
dialogue differs from character to
character
in addition to all of the funnels
clusters and networks in skyrim there
are also many npcs whose only job it is
to stand by and make the world seem real
i'm no one special just a miner who
swings a pickaxe for his drinking money
i call these dunsell npcs meaning
something whose only purpose is
decorative
in my analysis of the jrpg classics i
never made this distinction because the
elaboration category already serves so
well
but in skyrim there's an important
difference in the level of interactivity
these npcs offer
all quest participants and vendors in
skyrim have a small interactive menu
which pops up when the player speaks
with them the dunsal npcs lack this
although they do have plenty of dialogue
i'm on my way to solitude to join the
legion the united empire is better for
everyone and that dialogue does fall
into the normal elaboration categories
accomplishing various storytelling goals
throughout the world of skyrim if
anything these npcs are a move towards a
more japanese style of dialogue
in previous elder scrolls games almost
every npc had a menu that opened into
several dialogue options the need to
give these characters speech menu
options inadvertently led to a lot more
zone dialogue
you can see this in earlier elder
scrolls games as well as numerous other
pc rpgs in the dnd tradition
in skyrim perhaps because the developers
had more time money and memory space the
world is full of people who are just
there to make the world seem persuasive
they talk back but the player has no way
to steer the conversation with them
lastly i want to highlight a few spots
of artistry that aren't necessarily
idiosyncratic to skyrim but which are
nevertheless great examples of npcs
doing what other art forms probably
could not accomplish
the cluster event in eurovascular is a
good albeit brief example of
idiosyncratic storytelling
the event itself is a fight that breaks
out as soon as the player enters the
building
in a film we would see only the
combatants mostly head-on in shot
reverse shot
at least one of the characters would be
a main character and so the story and
camera would have to focus on the fight
but in a video game the player is
allowed to hover around the perimeter of
the fight and hear the commentary of all
the companions instead because nobody
involved in the fight is that much more
important than anyone else this freedom
suits the storytelling of the video game
medium
another idiosyncratic npc interaction
that the player can experience is a game
of tag
in several cities but most obviously in
solitude the player can enter a game of
tag with the local children and simply
play chase with them
there are plenty of chase scenes in
modern film television and even other
video games
but this interaction is different
there's no dramatic tension nor any
reward at stake
so why even put this in the game if the
goal of the designers was to offer the
player chances to level up in every
interaction this game of tag would be
superfluous but if making skyrim seem
like a persuasive setting was more
important than embedding a practical
reward in every interaction then these
games of tag make more sense this is a
chance for the player to play the role
of a benevolent hero even if nothing's
at stake
for players who only want to see their
stats go up this might be a
disappointment but for players who are
really into the role playing aspect of
the game these little bits of color make
the world feel more alive that's an
important pillar of the rpg and it
always has been
finally in morthal there is a very well
done quest that begins with a deeply
unnerving and highly idiosyncratic npc
interaction
in that city many npcs remark the recent
burning of frogger's house
the burning of the house is remarkable
in and of itself
but what really unnerves the townsfolk
is that hroger who lost his wife and
child in the blaze moves in with his new
girlfriend alva the very next day
because roger still lives in the city
players naturally want to talk to him
about the incident to see if there's
some piece of background information
they're not getting from everybody else
but harager's responses are eerie he
goes about his day with a blank affect
acting as though nothing at all is wrong
the flat affect of his responses deepens
the weirdness of the situation i won't
spoil the quests and his results but i
do want to note that we as players can
only experience this sense of weirdness
because hroger is an npc in an open
world game his responses are unnerving
that's true but more than all of that
the fact that we can just watch him go
about his life as though nothing has
happened to him really brings the
weirdness together roger is not hiding
some unspeakable grief he's hiding
something very different but that's not
something a book or film could convey in
quite the same way
skyrim has endured a lot of criticism
over the years some of it has been
warranted the game isn't perfect
many quest lines are truncated there are
lots of bugs and the main quest line is
a little uninspired but i think the game
also has lots of strengths that have
been overlooked few people really paid
attention to how elaborate and clever
the networks of npcs are and how well
they accomplish a variety of game design
goals
just to give you an idea of how much
work went into these npcs i want you to
look at how many people were employed to
make them in the making of skyrim
bethesda employed at least 8 writers 19
dialogue editors
and 17 audio professionals
also plenty of writers on game projects
are credited with the title other than
writer or editor so those numbers are
probably higher
that's at least 44 people whose job it
was to give voice to the many speaking
characters of skyrim
and that number doesn't count the game's
main design team nor any of the dozens
of voice actors who also contributed
not everyone i've counted there was
working on npcs full-time
but you do begin to get an idea of the
scope of the project
if the developers of the game knew that
npcs were important enough to dedicate
that many man hours to the project that
should tell us how much they matter to
the organization of a huge open world
thanks for watching
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