So, where do all the NPC's live?

[SamSmoot]

I just got to the story about the refugees being refused by Uldah, which made me realize there's no apparent residential quarters in, or around the city. Actually, since I've never seen a vendor or any other NC absent from it's "workplace", I guess they don't need places to live

[Vidu]

...would you rather have the vendors not be available for about half the time? This is a classic trade-off: Gameplay over realism/immersion.

Same can be said about not seeing to many residential quarters: Those are not the areas in the cities we're visiting in the first place. All the cities are much larger than what we can actually see, so... just imagine that the people live in parts of the cities we dont visit.

Other than that: People might stay at the inns, most cities have building that we cant enter, outside of Ul'dah you'll find tents that the refugees live in, certain smaller areas/villages contain actual homes, with beds, kitchens etc.

[DeaconMoore]

Oh they have places to live. They just keep the riffraff out, you know, the players. We're not allowed in those parts of the cities and can only live in special designated areas.

[Theodric]

Oh they have places to live. They just keep the riffraff out, you know, the players. We're not allowed in those parts of the cities and can only live in special designated areas.

To this day, Aleport remains one of my favourite in-game settlements. You can enter almost every building! Newer settlements aren't nearly as impressive - since everything is sealed off.

[WhiteArchmage]

There's an area in the north of Gridania that we're not allowed to enter and the guard explicitly says it's residential and outsiders are not allowed in. There's also an insane amount of buildings in Ul'Dah we can't go into, either, presumably houses. Although Ul'dah itself is the most justified since it (along with the Brume in Ishgard) has a sizeable beggar/homeless situation.

Conservation of detail and resources, mostly

[Vidu]

To this day, Aleport remains one of my favourite in-game settlements. You can enter almost every building! Newer settlements aren't nearly as impressive - since everything is sealed off.

To be fair: I lock my apartment door aswell - I always thought that its a bit weird that you can just walk into any home, jump on peoples beds and kitchen tables and nobody ever says "Excuse me, Miss, what are you doing here?" So having stuff sealed off always made sense to me - gameplay-wise (it would only be another copy-paste-room, right?), lorewise (you dont just enter the homes of strangers) and development-wise (not wasting ressources on another copy-paste-room that serves no purpose).

While I liked the exploring myself, I can totally see why they would put away with it - NPCs have a right to privacy too!

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Radiata stories had that. Each npc had a schedule, they had housing, and they wandered around doing their thing. It was neat.

[AmemeAmeklin]

There are a few areas of Ishgard that you can't get into that look to be nice housing areas. These are mostly the gated areas at the ends of the public streets.

[Gemina]

It would be cool if non-interactive NPCs retired to their quarters come the night hours, or during bad weather. Also, other non-interactive NPCs showing up during different times of the day. So long as we can't interact with them, SE can do whatever they want with them. I mean how long is that couple in the Gold Saucer going to embrace each other?

As another element of realism I would like to see; over at Costa del Sol, it would be awesome if one of Gejeruju's retainers grabbed his drink and threw it in his face, then tells him she quits. Then he just says, "She'll be back." thus starting the process all over again the next day.

[Camiie]

If you were an NPC in an RPG world would you really want adventurers knowing where you lived?