Lastly, I'll agree with the sentiment that sometimes just the abstract of a large city is the best way to handle it. I doubt that BSW will ever go that way, however.
Exactly. And what's with all this schedules and individual NPCs shit? What terrible way to waste time and resources. It's also terribly limiting the scope and believability, as in Oblivion. I can understand individual and detailed approaches in small locations, like a small village perhaps, but it's so pointless in big places. At least, if you gotta have it, do it procedural. Generate NPCs on the spot, based on predetermined statistics perhaps, like there are x% commoners, y% nobles, %z filthy scum and k% guards in a city, depending on the time of day, and generate persistency, individual schedules and behaviour based on further statistics for NPCs that have been in player's view or proximity for a while, in case the player is some sick fucking pervert, stalking people around, intending to rob or kill or what have you. This is the kind of thing that's only a step away from the model in Daggerfall. They got it so right with Daggerfall, they only needed to improve it. Fucking development team of janitors.
Assassin's Creed seems to have done fairly well on this. There are big cities, with crowds. It usually looks lively enough.
