Crowds (@arenamodders)

[GetTalon]

Hi, pleb here. Not a modder but I help where I can.

 

Arena mods might work smoothly or have a convincing cell built, but none of them have many spectators. In any of them, when I fight I feel like mine is the least important match of the week. Remember that birthday party that nobody showed up to except your family because you had no friends? Same energy.

 

I understand why; each AI has a different package and it can really drain your PC if there are too many (not to mention how long it takes to build them all).

 

I just want to ask- can we do what Oblivion did?

“The spectators outside of the balcony that are cheering are actually not NPCs, but animated objects. A clear indication of this is that if you manage to approach any of them, they will completely "ignore" you. This is the only instance of "fake" NPCs ever seen in any Elder Scrolls game. The spectators appear to be Bretons or Imperials wearing a full set of coarse linen clothing. They have editor IDs of ArenaSpectatorM and ArenaSpectatorF and form IDs of 0018b6a4 and 0018b6a5 respectively.“ https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Arena_(building)

 

The crowd in Oblivion’s arena didn’t need individual AI packages, they were just animated objects. It was super low quality and had about the same resolution as a meme resized in Paint, but it worked for the atmosphere. I think we could do better. If I’m fighting, I want it to look like the gosh darn Super Bowl.

 

So if someone can tell me why this hasn’t been done in Skyrim yet, greatly appreciated. Thanks